What Was Enough
by DarcyDarcy
Summary: My Kim/Jared story.
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N: Another try at an old story. Give it a chance; it might surprise you._**

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_**Chapter One. **_

"**I think people don't understand how lonely it is to be a kid, like you don't matter."**

_**-**__Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_

My first memory, the very best one I have, is my parents dancing together. Just in our living room, nothing special, except that it was to me. I remember clapping my hands as my father twirled my mother around to Frank Sinatra's crooning, and thinking she looked like a princess, even in her stretchy jeans and oversized blouse. My sister Sophie was curled up on the couch fast asleep, oblivious to the scene taking place in front of her closed eyelids. My father was murmuring the words to the song, staring at my mom like she was this amazing piece of art. Their love was too big, almost suffocating, and suddenly the room seemed to small to hold all of us. So I gathered up Sophie in my arms and left quietly. And the funniest thing of all is, I don't think they noticed.

Memories are so random they can only be described as cruel. The good and the bad are all mixed together in a jumble of remembering, both surfacing when you least want them to, making you wish, above all, that you could just forget. But you can't just make yourself forget. Because thinking about forgetting makes you remember anyway.

"That's it!"

My brother Christopher slammed his palm down on the kitchen table, making the silverware I'd placed down earlier clatter noisily. I looked up, startled, and noticed that his coloring seemed high. Or maybe that was my imagination; it was hard to tell against his rosewood tan.

"What?" I asked. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Chris's wife Penelope staring at her plate as if it were suddenly very interesting.

"I can't take it anymore, Kim," he said. His voice was somehow fierce and soft at the same time. "You need help. You're not eating well, you barely ever talk, and what happened to your friends? They haven't come around in ages."

I flushed, embarrassed to be called out. "I have a lot of schoolwork lately," I mumbled pathetically, knowing Chris wouldn't buy it.

And he didn't. "Bullshit," he declared. "You're depressed, and that's fine. I get it. I do. But I'm not going to sit around and do nothing about it."

_I'm not depressed!_ The words never reached my mouth, _would _never reach my mouth, because even I couldn't deny the truth when it was so obvious. Sophie fidgeted in her chair, her head bouncing back between Chris and I like she was watching an intense match of tennis.

"Penelope and I have discussed this," Chris continued. I was thankful he didn't comment on my silence. "And we agreed that maybe seeing a counselor would be good for you."

"A counselor?" I repeated blankly.

"A psychiatrist," he said. "Or, I guess, a therapist."

"I'm not crazy," I blurted out. "I'm not sick and—and there's nothing wrong with my head."

"Sweetie," said Penelope. "There's nothing wrong with talking to someone. I went to a therapist when I was younger, when my parents separated."

Her voice, meant to be comforting, seemed unbelievably condescending. I felt my spine stiffen and poked at a piece of my steak with my fork. "I guess I get no say?"

Instead of answering my question, Chris repeated, "It will be good for you."

I weighed my options carefully. I could fight it, and waste energy I didn't have, or I could go see some old lady and spend time that would otherwise be spent staring at the walls of my room. I didn't really believe in therapy and I certainly didn't think I would benefit from it, but at this point I didn't have much to lose.

"Fine, whatever," I said.

Both of them looked placated, and I wondered if this was it. Was this caring for my well-being love? Having little to no experience with the concept, I couldn't be sure.

Little Ethan made coughing sounds from his highchair, and Penelope immediately jumped up to tend to her son. It was odd to live with my brother's family, the family he'd chosen and not the one he got stuck with, and I got that same feeling I'd had all those years before, like I was intruding on something. I glanced over at Sophie, who was eating her food looking like she didn't have a care in the world. Maybe she didn't, being a nine-year-old girl and all.

"Shh, calm down, baby boy, cough it out," Penelope was murmuring. She settled Ethan into the crook of her arm and did this jiggly thing that usually makes him fall asleep right away. Penelope was one of those mothers who worried about everything, from brain development to contagious illnesses. Ethan, sadly, was going to be subjected to a childhood filled with bilingual baby shows that claimed they would make him smarter in the future, and also a mother who would never let him walk into school by himself.

"I can't eat anymore," Sophie declared, pushing away her plate. There was still more than half of her food left, but Sophie was not a big eater. "I'm going to my room."

"Me too," I said.

Chris looked like he might object but didn't. Penelope insisted that we all sit down for dinner every night, which is something that had happened next to never in my old house. I would have preferred to just take the food up to my food every night, but it's hard to say no to Penny.

The house that they'd bought together was nice, but not big enough to accommodate five people. That wasn't in the Plan, so to speak. Penelope had never wanted more than one child, and now she was stuck with two that weren't even hers.

Because of the size issues and my wanting to separate myself from the rest of the family, I opted to take residence in the attic rather than sharing a room with Sophie or the baby. It wasn't a bad trade-in, because even though the ceilings were low and there was only one little window, the attic was big enough to move in my queen bed and desk. When I'd first moved in, Penelope had insisted on a shopping day, and she bought me a new comforter and some throw rugs, which gave the otherwise freaky attic a slightly homey feel. The only problem was the only way to get up there was a ladder that extended down into the garage, which would have been awesome when I was younger but now was just annoying.

I sat down on my bed at first, wondering if it was too early for me to fall asleep. Then, growing restless, I moved over to the window and looked out. It was getting dark and no one was out at the beach, which I could see just over the house across from ours. Penelope was always complaining that we were so close to the ocean but without a view, but she was wrong, because I got a perfect view of the cliffs and the choppy water. But when I looked out that window, it wasn't usually the ocean I watched.

And I know it's stalkerish and if anyone found out I would die, but watching Jared Thail's room has become something of a pastime for me. His house was one of those really big, stilted ones along the residential coast that are built to survive any kind of weather the sea could send their way. I had a perfect view of it from my room, just across the way, and I knew for a fact that Jared's room is the second on the left of the second story. He spent a surprising amount of time in his room for someone who gets invited to so many things. He always left his lights on and his curtain opened so at night, like now, I could make him out perfectly. I thanked God for his gigantic windows.

It looks like he was doing homework, but I couldn't be sure. He was sitting on his bed scribbling something, hunched over in concentration. You can't make out facial features from so far away, but I liked to think I had Jared's memorized. He has a Face, one of those ones you could never forget once you saw it. People stare at that Face everywhere he goes, and he knows it. How could he not?

As I watched, Jared picked up his cell phone and talked for a few seconds before putting it down again. He ran a hand through his hair and I could practically hear the sigh he let out. A few minutes passed, and I tried to look away for a while, but a new movement caught my eye.

Someone entered his room, and it didn't take a genius to know it was a girl. I couldn't tell you who it was, only that she had a body that would have put a supermodels to shame. I took in a sharp inhale of breath as Jared got up from his bed and walked over to her. She wrapped her arms around his waist and then, like a sharp bolt of lightning to my heart, Jared's eyes and mine suddenly connected. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe.

There was a second, just a second, of eye contact, and then Jared snapped his blinds shut.

And even though I knew he couldn't see me anymore, I shut mine, too.

* * *

It's raining.

Not that that's saying much – it's always raining. But today the rain fell in hard and even pellets, like gunshots, and it didn't let up one bit. These are the days when everyone would just like to fall back into bed, but the La Push school system doesn't operate that way. We never have storm days and we barely have snow days. The reservation is so small that if you're car doesn't start up or the roads are iced over, walking is always a feasible option.

I like to listen to the rain as I fall asleep, but that's about it. Still, no matter how passionate someone's loathing of the rain is, if you live in La Push, you're at least _used _to it. I, for instance, know exactly the order of clothing to avoid being dripping wet and freezing all day. Bra, long-sleeved shirt, tank top, sweater, sweatshirt. Underwear, jeans, sweatpants. It took me all of grammar school to perfect my routine, but now it's second nature.

"Don't forget your lunch," I reminded Sophie. Penny had insisted she wear a big winter jacket – even though it was still a few weeks away from December and hadn't begun to snow yet – and she looked like she'd spent the morning throwing a fit. Penny and her were always fighting, mostly because Sophie had turned into a gigantic brat in the past year, but also because Penny knew just how to push a little girl's buttons.

"Let's _go_," urged Sophie, picking up her pink flowery lunchbox and leaving before Penny could say anything else.

Penny sighed, and I smiled sympathetically at her, but it was all fake, a show to make us look and feel like we were something we weren't, a real family. We were all actors and we knew it, but acting was better than giving up all shreds of whatever family we'd once had.

"Have a good day," she told me.

"Yeah, you too," I said back.

Sophie was sitting in my car, her arms folded across her chest, something that looked almost comical with her huge jacket. Her light cheeks were flushed from the cold and from the tears that were streaming down her face. I opened the door, giving it a hard tug because lately it had been sticking, and turned on the heater before I turned to face her.

"I hate it here," she said, and let out a shuddery kind of cry.

_Me too. _"Don't say that," I said. "Penny and Chris are doing the best they can for us."

Eight-year-olds crying are not a big deal. It's not out of the ordinary or significant, nothing that should make another person cry, but I had to fight back the tears anyway. Because Sophie's not crying about a lost Barbie doll or a mean teacher or a playground fight. She's crying over real things, things that would make anyone cry, and it isn't fair, and I hate it. I want to make it go away and I can't, and that's the worst feeling, knowing the problem isn't something that's fixable.

"I just want to go h-h-h-_home_," she said, kicking the glove compartment in front of her with all her might.

"Hey!" I said. "Stop it, Soph. You're being a baby."

"I don't care!" she said indignantly. "I'll be a baby all I want. I wish I _was_ a baby, like Ethan, because all he does is cry and nobody hates him."

"Nobody hates you," I said.

"Yes they do! Everyone hates me, nobody wants me here, all I do is cause p-problems. I wish I was dead too!"

I guess, all things considered, her words shouldn't have shocked me so much, or at least made me so angry. But they did. Suddenly I was livid, like something locked up inside of me had just been released, and I exploded. Really exploded, right in my little sister's face in my car parked in the driveway of my brother's house. I wanted to scream and cry and _hurt _something. Because life was unfair, to her and to me, and that's just how it was going to be from here on out. No one was going to cut us any slack, not our family or friends or God, or whoever calls the shots in this massively fucked up world. And we just had to be okay with that, because if we weren't, no one was going to bother picking up the pieces.

"Are you _crying_?" Sophie asked, sniffling herself.

"I'm not crying," I said. "Shut up and buckle your seatbelt. We're going to be late."

I drove too fast, faster than the rain allowed, daring to get a ticket or worse. And the whole time I was thinking this isn't me, this isn't me. But I was doing it, wasn't I? So obviously it was me. The idea that I could do anything at all made me feel oddly powerful, but not in a good way – in a scary, unbalanced sort of way.

When I finally dropped Sophie off, I wasn't crying anymore. I didn't cry often; tears didn't solve anything, after all, so they were no good to me unless there was a very special reason. I wiped off my eyes and straightened my shoulders and in a few minutes, I'll pretend like this never happened. Maybe if I went to that therapist like Chris wanted me to, I'd learn better ways to deal with all this emotional crap, but this is all I have right now.

The student parking lot wasn't crowded, because obviously whoever had built the school had overestimated the population of La Push by a lot. As far as I knew, no more than two hundred kids attended school, and barely a fourth of those drove in. The cars that were there were nice for the most part, new and shiny, because besides being sparse, La Push's residents were also known for living over their budget.

My car wasn't that out of place, really. It was a 2005 make, which made it older than most, but the black paint job was as spotless as ever. I don't really know how it was decided that the car would be mine, and I'm not sure I really even wanted it, but I got it. It smelled like my dad, all cologne and minty, not unpleasant but somehow eerie, like he'd just been driving it yesterday.

It takes a long time for death to rip away everything from a person. For months, everything reminds you of them, your deceased loved ones, and then slowly that goes away. And then, like now, a year and a half later, it's the car you drive and the smell of cologne that gets you.

Because of the lack of students, the reservation's high school is two buildings, one story, and a small quad that never gets used because of the rain. The only part that's worth anything is the cafeteria, which was recently renovated by the council using money the government gives us annually. It's really big and fancy, with chairs that aren't plastic and hardwood floors. A lot of parents got mad when the council used the money for that rather than new books or something, but almost every kid at the school will say the cafeteria's worth more to them.

I park my car where I always do, in a tight spot three rows from the entrance to the school. My backpack is heavy and it hurts my shoulder, but unlike Lily Donovan, a few cars down from me, I don't have a boyfriend to carry it for me. And, I reflected, if I _did _have a boyfriend, I doubt he'd carry my stuff. I'm not the type of girl people worry themselves with – nothing about me seems vulnerable, just average and plain.

"Paul, don't play that game with me," Lily was saying in her feminine little voice. I used to be jealous of Lily, and I guess I still am, but it hurts to be jealous of someone for long.

"I'm not playing any games," said a deep, low mutter that I knew belonged to Paul. I could imagine his face as he said it, annoyed and vaguely amused. I'd known Paul since I was a baby, since before I could remember, but we weren't really friends. If I ever really needed him, I suppose he'd be there, and vice versa. But that's just the product of being in the same playground until we could make friends for ourselves. And Paul did a pretty good job of that.

"Yeah, whatever," Lily huffed and stomped away, glancing at me on her way out. I lowered my eyes, realizing how rude I was being, standing there listening to their conversation which was obviously private.

"Hey, Kim," Paul said, catching up with me quickly while still managing to maintain a lazy stride. He had both hands shoved in his pockets and looked awkward, like he wanted to say something but couldn't.

"Oh, hey Paul," I replied.

There was silence; not exactly a tortured silence, but still an uncomfortable one. Finally Paul just came right out and said, "So, you okay?"

I was silent for a while before replying. It wasn't the first time Paul had asked me that; he'd taken to asking me it every time he saw me. And I'd always answered the same way, a simple, "Yeah, thanks." But now I felt different. I didn't want to lie, not to Paul or anyone. So I said, "No, not really, but thanks."

Paul looked shocked and a little alarmed. "Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked.

I stopped walking and turned to face him. He was so good-looking, all chiseled and handsome, and even though he had temper problems and was sometimes an unreasonable asshole, he cared, at least for the time being. "No," I said. "Probably not. Thanks, though."

"Yeah, of course," he said. He cleared his throat. "Well, I'll see you around, Kim."

I nodded, wondering if he'd ignore me the next time we saw each other. And then I wondered if I cared.

My AP Lit teacher looks like a bird. Not a baby bird or an owl or anything, more like a hawk, a bird of prey. She's got real pointy features and when she looks at you, it's always through her thin rectangular spectacles. Her name is Mrs. Stick, and a lot of people say she has a major stick up her ass, but I don't think so.

In class we're supposed to be talking about _The Metamorphosis_, a book that depressed me more than it did entertain, but all I can think about is how Jared isn't here. With my last name Thames and his Thail, and the fact that all of our teachers insist on alphabetical seating charts, we sit next to each other in every class we have together, which is four out of seven.

I wonder if he's sick, but he can't be, can he, seeing as how he was just fine last night. Maybe he's still sleeping, all worn out from…but I didn't want to think about that. I gave my head a firm shake and paid close attention to whatever Mrs. Stick was saying.

Lunch comes fast that day. There aren't periods of lunch because the entire student body fits comfortably into the cafeteria. Sometimes I wish there _were _periods, though, because having a bunch of different lunches gives you leeway to say, _It's not that I'm sitting by myself because I don't have friends…it's because my friends don't have this lunch. _Instead, you have to make friends to sit with the best you can, because these are the people you're going to be eating with for the rest of your high school career.

I come out of the lunch line with an apple and chicken nuggets on my plate and make a beeline out the door. The administration will say that you can only eat lunch inside the café, but they're lying. If you make friends with a teacher, they'll let you eat in their classroom most of the time, and the library is always an option. That's where I head now, the library, right next to the lunchroom but somehow seeming far away from all those people.

"Kim, you're not on one of those crazy diets, are you?" the librarian, Mr. Stark, asked me when I sat down at one of the small tables and took a bite out of my apple.

"Do I need to be?" I asked.

Mr. Stark and I go way back. When I was in middle school, he was my English teacher all three years, and we got along well. He moved to high school the year I did, because he'd always wanted to be a librarian more than a teacher and the old librarian got pregnant or something. He's got big, thick glasses that are either really lame or trendy and he's always reading an article out of a magazine, like he is now.

"Apparently seventy-six percent of teenage girls have considered an eating disorder," he informed me. "Eight-three percent think they're weight isn't ideal."

"Wow," I said. I couldn't be counted among that percentage. Naturally I have a quick metabolism and it's not like I eat a lot, so I've always been slender. I have fine curves, C-cups that I could be proud of and hips that were maybe a little too small. I used to run track, so my legs are toned too. "What magazine are you reading, Mr. Stark?"

"_Teen Vogue_," he told me, and made a face while he flung it on the desk in front of him. He plopped down across from me and smiled kindly. "So how's it going, Miss Kim?"

"Alright," I said, taking a stab at a chicken nugget with a fork.

Mr. Stark frowned at that, his bullshit detector on high. "Love problems?" he asked sympathetically.

"I don't know that you could call them love problems," I sighed.

"Of course you can," he said. "I'm telling you, Miss Kimmie, you're too good for that Jared piece of trash."

"You don't even know him," I said, feeling like I had something to defend.

"I know he waltzes around this school with girls dangling off him like he's some kind of God," he said. "And believe me, that has a way of getting to someone's head."

From the story I've heard, Mr. Stark was quite the catch when he was attending school here. He's still good-looking, thirty-years and several gray hairs later, but more in a paternal, safe way, like he's someone who wouldn't hurt a fly. Jared could never look like that, not if he lived to be ninety years old. His looks are more chiseled and dangerous. But anyway, Mr. Stark got a little cocky and that cockiness led to several years of thinking he was something he wasn't. It took him five extra years, he said, to figure out he didn't like women. Now he lives in a condo on the east side of town with his partner, who used to work with my dad.

"Yeah," I said. "Well, I guess he's got a new girlfriend or something, because I saw him with some girl yesterday."

Mr. Stark rolled his eyes. "Did she look like the others?"

"I didn't get a good look," I admitted. "But I'd venture to say yes."

"Screw him," Mr. Stark said decisively. "You get yourself out of here in two years, go to Harvard, Penn State, Duke, wherever. And Jared's going to be another boy who lives his whole life in La Push because he never had the opportunity to leave."

"I don't know, he's pretty smart," I said. 'Pretty smart' didn't quite cover it. I knew for a fact that Jared was in the top ten, maybe top five, of the graduating class this year. I didn't know where he was going to college, but he could get in somewhere far away too.

"Mark my words, Kimberly, he's going to be in La Push for a long while."

But for some reason, the idea of Jared Thail remaining in La Push for the rest of his life didn't make me feel satisfied.

Actually, it made me feel sort of depressed.

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**A/N: I realize my Kim might seem like a bland character right now, but as I get to explaining more of her history she gets less 2D, I promise! **

**Please review, that would brighten my day! :) **


	2. Chapter 2

When Sophie was a baby, she couldn't drink out of a bottle right.

My mom took her to the doctor right away, and he said Sophie had development problems. He was right, but Mom didn't want to believe that. The truth was, Sophie was just about the dumbest-seeming baby I'd ever seen. You'd put a toy in front of her face, and she'd just stare at it, making no response or reaction. But the bottle-issue was what really had everyone worried. She would start sucking for a second or two and then let the bottle's nipple drop from her mouth like she got tired and couldn't hold on. Sophie was real small and skinny, and she needed nutrients or else she wasn't going to grow.

It didn't help that Sophie was a fussy baby, just short of being colicky. For all that she could scream her lungs out, you'd think she'd be able to drink, but I guess it doesn't work like that. I used to think of Sophie screamed so much because she was upset that she couldn't do anything else. Maybe that was true.

Back then, I would wake up in the middle of the night to Sophie's cries and it seemed like it took Mom forever to get around to doing anything. Sometimes I'd get up and check on her before anyone else did. My parents complained about Sophie a whole lot, because Chris and I had never given them so much problems, and I don't think they ever got over their irritation with her.

Though nobody knows about it really, the reason Sophie got over her "development problems" was at least somewhat because of Jared. I remember one day when my mom took us kids to Paul's house so that she could have a chat with his mother, Jared was over playing with Paul. They were eleven and I was eight, so mostly I hung around with the mom's. But Jared wandered over eventually, and I remember exactly how he looked – cute, mischievous, charming even as a kid. He took a look into Sophie's stroller and made a few faces and then turned to me and said, "How come she doesn't do anything?"

"She's got development issues," I told him, blushing. I still had a slight lisp, and the way I said "issues" sounded funny.

Jared looked back to Sophie and held a hand in front of her face, moving it around quickly. Sophie's eyes darted wherever they went at lightning-speed. "No she doesn't. She's smart, can't you tell?"

"The doctor says she might be slow," I told him. I felt embarrassed at having a little sister who didn't work right. "She can't even drink out of her bottle."

Jared looked skeptical at that. "All babies can drink," he said.

"Not this one," I said. I glanced up at my mom who wasn't paying us the slightest attention and took the bottle out of her hands. She looked at me for a second and smiled a little bit, that aw-shucks-go-away-cutie smile. I put the bottle of warm milk in front of Sophie's mouth, and nothing happened, so I put the nipple inside of her mouth. She did what she always did – small suck, release.

"See?" I said.

"She's trying to do it right," Jared insisted. "She just doesn't know how."

"Exactly," I said. "Most babies just know how, in-stink-tiv-lee."

Jared took the bottle from my hands and put it back in Sophie's mouth. When nothing happened, he brought it back to his fingers and squeezed the mouth piece, demonstrating what needed to be done. Sophie watched him intently, unblinkingly, and when he put the bottle back to her she sucked for longer - not much, but enough to make a noticeable difference.

"See? She was just confused, that was all," Jared said.

I guess you could say that was the day I fell in love with him, but then I fell in love with Jared Thail lots of times, on lots of different days.

But from then on, Sophie _did_ drink better. It was a slow process, but soon she was drinking and acting normally for her age. Mom and Dad were thanking the heavens, but I knew better.

* * *

"He's got mono, my mom heard it from his mom."

"It's an STD, like one of the deadly ones – you can't hook up with that many girls and still expect to be clean."

"I bet he dropped out, and they just haven't told us because everyone else would follow his lead."

"I swear I saw him Monday, hanging out by the cliffs with that Sam Uley guy."

The rumors that were floating around were plentiful and every time it seemed like one was set in stone, ten more knocked it out of the way. When it came down to it, _no one _knew where he was. Not Paul, his best friend, or Tia, the girl he'd been dating until just a few days ago. Not even the teachers, who were tight-lipped when the subject of Jared arose, to mask the fact that they were just as clueless as we were.

But his absences must have been excused; if they hadn't been, the police would have knocked down his door a long time ago, because it's been two weeks and no one's heard from him. At this point, no one would be shocked if he turned out to be dead, because the student body's already mourning his absence.

"Sheesh," my old friend, Ella, said in fourth period AP Psychology. Ella and I had been friends since middle school, but lately we'd lost touch. Every time she looked at me you could tell she was just a little angry, but also guilty for feeling angry, all things considered. "I don't want to find out would happen if he _were _dead."

I agreed. "They'd probably cancel classes for weeks."

Jared's blinds remained closed too. This made me feel slightly worried and also extremely embarrassed, considering the reason they might be closed is because of my snooping. I flushed every time I thought about it. Or maybe he was just dead in there, and his mom was some kind of sadist performing rituals on the body – this came from a kid in third period AP World History.

With all the homework I was getting – which was a lot, at least compared with last year – it wasn't hard to find ways to occupy my thoughts. But everything I thought about kept coming back to Jared somehow. I was worried about him, legitimately worried, probably more worried than stupid Tia or anyone of his other girlfriends.

It's not like I could tell anyone. Chris and Penelope were out of the question for obvious reasons, Sophie was too little, I didn't have many friends and certainly not any close ones now, and Mr. Stark would just advise me against liking him at all. It was times like these that I wished I wrote in a diary, but that was something I'd never gotten into, and it seemed so childish to start that now.

A few times I tried, on scrap of paper I'd ripped out from my math notebook. _Jared's missing, _I wrote. _Missingmissingmissing. _After I while the words evolved into useless sketches and swirls, so I crumbled it up and threw it away. I tried to read. My Lit teacher had assigned a new book, _Romeo and Juliet_, but I just wasn't a Shakespeare person. The TV seemed like a good option, but I didn't have cable up here and I'd watched all my DVD's tons of times.

Basically, my life without Jared was pitiful, which was even more pitiful because it's not like anything happened when he was around. But at least then I had something to think about; a smile thrown my way that I'd save for weeks, a gentle touching of hands as we exchanged papers to grade. Jared always wrote in no-nonsense blue pen, his handwriting slanted to the right. When he was really concentrating, a little crease formed in his forehead and he hunched over with his head close to the paper he was scribbling on, making his shaggy black hair fall into his eyes.

I sighed loudly. I was useless.

At school, I kept an eye out in the hallways and every time a door opened I got excited. But Jared never came.

Halfway through the second week, Paul stopped coming to school too. Not quite as many people noticed this, but a good portion in the school as intrigued. Jared and Paul, the two most popular boys in school, drop-outs? Perpetual skippers? Dying of kidney failure?

"Paul's mom came to get his work yesterday," Mr. Stark told me on Thursday. "I was getting my mail and this lady barges in – you know how Mrs. Renner is, real small with all that red lipstick – and she said she's picking up all of her son's work, because he's going to be out for a few weeks. Said he was sick."

"With what?" I asked.

"Didn't say," shrugged Mr. Stark.

"Hmmm."

Color me curious.

The thing is, La Push is a small town. _Really _small. It doesn't take much to get the tiny population excited, and that was exactly the case now. Jared and Paul's mysterious disappearance was the most interesting thing since Rina Patterson had gotten pregnant last year and moved to Seattle. It's pathetic, but that's how it is.

Even Penny knew about it. "So some lady from my work said her son saw that Jared boy with Sam Uley and Paul, too, I think. I'd put my money on a gang, maybe a cult-type thing."

Penny, for all that she seemed a reasonable and mature person, was obsessed with conspiracies. Nothing was black and white. We never went to the moon, 9/11 was a government operation, the Holocaust never happened. I don't know if she truly believed all of it, but she sure had her facts all jumbled up.

"I bet they're sick," I said.

"Hmph. Well, we'll see." Penny raised her eyebrows and popped a piece of pork into her mouth. Chris sighed and grinned indulgently, like she was just so cute, when really what she was was annoying.

"Where's the baby?" I asked.

"He's taking a nap," said Penny. "He had a rough day at daycare, poor thing. He missed his daddy."

I glanced at Chris, and it was like he was proud, proud that he had a temper-tantrum-throwing one-year-old that never listened and caused problems because he was so spoiled. Sophie rolled her eyes and I knew she was thinking the same thing.

"Kim, you know you have that appointment tomorrow," Chris told me. "Four o'clock. I can take you."

Chris didn't trust me to go by myself. Smart guy. Probably thought I would make a run for it.

"Thanks, but I can get there fine on my own," I said, knowing I was wasting words.

"No, I'll take you," he insisted. "It's no trouble. I don't want you to get lost."

_Bullshit. _"Whatever, Chris."

After dinner, I helped clean the dishes and then wandered into Sophie's bedroom to help her with her homework. Sophie's room was supposed to be a guest room, and Penny hadn't gotten around to changing it. The walls were a deep maroon with wood panels and hardwood floor. Sophie's princess comforter, canopy, and Crayon-colored desk didn't look right the way they did at our old house. My mom had finally agreed to let Sophie redo her room just before the accident, and Sophie had chosen pale pink for the walls. We even took a trip to the Ikea in Seattle to purchase a huge Eiffel Tower picture that her new room was too small for.

"It's Parents Appreciation Week, did you know?" Sophie asked me. I was sitting with my hands underneath by bottom on her bed, and she was pulling out papers from a folder at the desk.

"I didn't," I said.

"My teacher said that I could make a card for Penny or Chris or you," she continued, flipping through pages and pages to find the right one. "She said she'd change my papers to say 'Sibling Appreciation Week,' but I told her that was stupid."

I widened my eyes, repressing a chuckle. "What did she say?"

"She said I shouldn't use that word, and also that I could do whatever I wanted for the card." Sophie smiled big, flashing her newly grown front teeth. She had a good smile, and in fact a good everything else. Sophie had walked away with the majority of the looks in the family. Her hair was dark and thick, tumbling down her back in waves, and her eyes were big and light brown, like Dad's. She had a delicate nose and eyebrows that arched perfectly, and her mouth seemed to full for an nine-year-old but would one day be attractive.

"So what did you do?"

"I made one for Mommy, and one for Daddy," Sophie said. She motioned to two cards on her desk, one pink and one blue. "I worked really hard on them. Some kid next to me said it was stupid, but it's not."

I picked up the cards carefully, not wanting to bend the corners or somehow damage them. Sophie's handwriting was neat and big, and read _I love you Mommy! _and _I love you Daddy! _in colorful ink. On the inside was a picture of them, drawn to surprising detail with wings coming out of their backs.

"These are really nice," I said, putting them down before they hurt me. My heart ached; Sophie didn't and wouldn't for a long time understand the finality of death.

"I want to put it by them," she said proudly. "Will you take me?"

I hadn't been to the graveyard since the funeral, and until this point I'd had no plans of ever returning. Graveyards had always freaked me out, but it's worse when you know someone there. It's like they're following you, or trying to talk to you, or maybe all they're doing it laying in a box below you, gone forever from this world. The uncertainty of it scared me.

"Maybe one day," I said without much conviction. I wasn't good at talking about my emotions; it made me squeamish and vulnerable. So I changed the subject quickly by saying, "So how about that math?"

Sophie looked disappointed, but she took out her assignment anyway and I helped her for a while.

It didn't occur to me that maybe she needed someone to talk to, because no one ever thought to be there for her.

* * *

The psychiatrist's name was Dr. Meadows.

With a name like that, I should have felt more at ease. I should have conjured pictures of streams and cricket noises and shit, Bambi or something. But the classical music that was playing in her office made me feel tense; Beethoven just wasn't doing it for me lately. I thumbed through a magazine in her office – a surprisingly recent edition of _People _– and tapped my foot while Chris scrolled through messages on his Blackberry.

"You could go," I had told him when we sat down.

"I might as well wait," he said. "By the time I get back, I'd just have to leave again."

He was right, but that wasn't my fault. The psychiatrist him and Penny had picked out for me had an office in Port Angeles, which is a good hour away from the reservation. The drive was awkward, just like every other moment Chris and I spent alone together. It wasn't always like that. Chris was older than me by nine years, so we hadn't seen much of each other growing up, which probably made us closer than we would have been otherwise. I was his cute little sister he liked teasing on the holidays; he was the big brother I hero-worshipped. But it's hard to keep up that sort of attitude toward one another when we live together.

"What am I supposed to tell her?" I hissed to him, when I couldn't take the silence any longer.

"I don't know," Chris said. "Tell her you're brother forced you to come. Tell her whatever you want. Therapists can work off of anything, right?"

"Sure, sure," I said.

But I was nervous. I'd even dressed up nice, in my best cream-colored sweater and dark-wash jeans. My hair was pulled into a sleek and shiny ponytail rather than it's usual messy bun. I wanted to look presentable, because I didn't want Dr. Meadows to judge me. I could just imagine her thought process if I walked in the door looking like I normally did.

"Just be yourself," Chris advised.

Because myself was angsty enough to work its magic on Meadows.

The fact that I was being forced to come here on every Tuesday of every week for God knows how long really grated on my nerves. I treasured my newly found independence, and now that was being taken away too.

Finally my name was called. I glanced at Chris but he barely looked up from his phone, motioning with one hand for me to go back. I did so hesitantly, partly because I didn't want to and partly because I had no idea where I was going. The hallway that adjoined the waiting room had several doors, none of them labeled or opened, so I just stood there.

After a minute or so, someone called, "Kimberly?"

I thought it sounded like it came from the first doorway, so I peeked in that door first. "Yes, yes, come in here, Kimberly," said the same voice.

I pushed open the door wide. Stepped inside. Cautiously examined my surroundings. The room wasn't anything special, low-ceilinged with lots of windows and three bookshelves. There was a big desk and three big chairs, and a sofa. A small woman who looked like she couldn't be older than twenty was sitting on one of the chairs, a notepad and pen in her hands.

"You must be Kimberly," she said warmly, and extended her hand.

For a second I stared, before realizing she must mean for me to go and shake it. "And you're Dr. Meadows?" I asked, hating this already.

"That's me," she said. "I'd tell you to call me by my first name, but it's Eugenia, so we can't have that."

I sat down and smiled slightly. The motion made my jaw hurt. She certainly didn't _look_ like a Eugenia. She looked like an Ashley or Ellie or Jessica. Her hair was light blonde and cut in the trendiest fashion, and her suit managed to be professional and stylish, so different from the lame pantsuits Penny always wore.

"With a name like that, maybe you should be the one in therapy," I said.

Meadows grinned, but I could tell she was watching me closely. She scribbled something in her notepad and I was desperate to know what, but I didn't ask. I didn't know what the proper etiquette was in this kind of situation. I crossed my legs and then uncrossed them, feeling wildly out-of-place.

"Hmmm, so, Kimberly—" she began.

"Call me Kim," I interrupted. "Everyone does."

"Alrighty, Kim then. How are you?" Meadows stared at me like the next words out of my mouth would be the most interesting she'd ever heard.

"Uhm, pretty good," I said. "You?"

I cringed inwardly, realizing how stupid that sounded.

But Meadows smiled. "Very good, thank you. So many people forget that psychiatrists have problems, too."

I could tell she was trying to relate to me somehow, though it was very subtle. I said, "I bet."

"So you're brother sent you here?" she asked curiously, leaning forward.

"Yeah," I said. "Well, him and his wife. They think I'm depressed."

"Do _you _think you're depressed?"

I frowned at the question. "I don't know. I've never been depressed before, so I don't know what it's like."

Meadows scribbled something down again. It irritated me. I craned my neck to get a look, but there was no way I could see.

"How do I tell if I'm depressed?" I asked. "Is there an at-home test? A stick I need to pee on?"

I could tell Meadows was surprised. Maybe she thought I was going to be some quiet, teary little girl with no sense of humor. I felt an odd sense of victory. I wished that Meadows would go up to Chris and Penny and say, "Why on Earth did you think this girl needs therapy? She's absolutely fine. She doesn't need help."

But I guess Meadows would like to be paid.

She said, "No, but you could make a lot of money if you invented something like that."

I shrugged.

There was silence. I decided then that being a psychiatrist must be the best job in the world. Sit and let someone talk to you for an hour – or not talk, whichever – and get paid a hundred bucks. I wondered what classes I'd have to take to become one, and if some type of med school was required.

"I just want you to know that everything you say to me is completely confidential," Meadows said. "By law, I can't repeat anything you say. It's doctor-patient confidentiality."

"I don't have anything to say," I told her. It was true. I didn't know how to do this. I wasn't Penny, who could make a conversation out of anything, or my mother, who had been so in touch with her emotions she could have been a psychiatrist for herself. I hid away from all the bad things in my life, and that was okay with me. I didn't need to resurface all that pain from so long ago. I didn't want to feel it again.

I didn't want to feel it _ever again._

"How's school?" she asked.

"School's fine," I replied.

"Do you do anything after school? A sport, a club?"

"I used to do track, but I quit," I told her, feeling ashamed, like always, to admit that more or less I sat around my room and stared at the walls.

"Why'd you quit?"

I thought about that. Turned it over in my head. Running was something I'd always loved to do, even before it became a sport to me. I wasn't good at many things, but I was fast, really fast, and it felt good to _be _good for once. But last year, I'd told Coach I was quitting. I didn't give an explanation to him or myself. I don't know why I did it.

"I just didn't feel like doing it anymore," I said nonchalantly, no big deal. But already this damn psychiatrist was making me feel like there had been some hidden, ulterior motive for my quitting track, a metaphor of sorts. _I was tired of running. _Running from…?

I shook my head. It was like English class, when we dissected books so thoroughly you had to wonder if that was really the author's intention or if it just turned out that way.

"Did your brother or sister-in-law encourage you to continue?" asked Meadows.

I snapped back into attention. "No. I mean," I tacked on quickly, "I don't think they even knew I ran. It's not a big sport at my school, which is stupid, because it's the best team we've got. We were really good, we won every meet and made it to Regionals."

"You never told them about it?"

"We weren't close before I moved in with them," I defended myself. "There was never any reason to tell them."

"Mhm," Meadows said absently.

"They're busy enough without me," I added. "They're got their baby, Ethan, and their jobs. Sophie and I complicated things too much as it is. I try to stay quiet."

"Right." She looked at me then, pushing a piece of light hair behind her ears. "Are you close with your sister Sophie?"

"I love her," I said. "She's annoying, but she's my baby sister. She's all I…she can be a brat, but she's eight, you know."

"How is Sophie?"

This surprised me. Not that I minded talking about Sophie, but I had been expecting to be forced to talk about my life and problems for the duration of the hour. But then, I didn't know how psychiatrists operated. Maybe this was a technique of some kind.

"She's…" I trailed off, thinking about the pictures she'd showed me yesterday, the request she'd made. "Eight."

"Is she going through a Hannah Montana stage? Or has that not come yet?" Meadows chuckled.

"Jonas Brothers," I reported. "Not Hannah Montana, but I think that's only because she dated the brother Sophie likes. She was pissed."

"It must be nice to be nine," mused Meadows. "Don't you think?"

"I don't know," I said thoughtfully. "I narrowly dodged the Hannah Montana craze. It's hard to see that as a drawback in the long-run."

Meadows smile was slow this time, spreading from the corners of her mouth until it became a full-on grin.

"You're not what I thought you'd be," she told me.

"Are you allowed to say that?" I asked. "I mean, can psychiatrists openly make judgments?"

That made her frown. She thought for a second and then said, "I don't know if we're supposed to. Probably not. But we do."

"Everyone does," I said.

_That's the whole problem._

**A/N: So, let me be honest: I've never been to a psychiatrist. I don't know how they work. This could be completely different from an actual visit, I honestly have no clue and I didn't feel like doing a ton of research. Also, psychiatrists technically deal with "mental disorders" (they're also the only type of "therapists" that are able to prescribe medicine) and my Kim doesn't have one of those. Depression could be considered one, and while Kim isn't clinically depressed, they don't know that. And, okay, I'm thinking La Push here. Small town next to a bunch of other small towns. They're not exactly going to have therapist/psychologist/psychiatrist galore. Beggars can't be choosers.**

**Alrighty so a little bit about Kim real quick! I know she's kind of, I don't know exactly how to put it, unemotional? She's not big on emotions, that's for sure. And I just want to explain that and let you know it's not going to be that way for long. Right now, Kim's been through a lot of tragedy (more emotional tragedy than you might think, there's a little twist coming in to play eventually; you'll see!) and because of that, she's sort of closed-up, even to herself. She's scared to breech her emotions – I would be too! But screw that, because Jared's going to come in and toy with her emotions (unintentionally of course; I love Jared) and make her a whole lot more interesting.**

**OKAY, so anyway. Thank you so much to my eight reviewers! All of your comments made me so happy, you don't even know. :D I hope everyone enjoys this chapter, it's sort of special to me, in a weird way.**

**Oh and Jared's coming next chapter! Do you want to see the imprint next chapter, or the one after that?**

**Also any ideas are always welcomed and appreciated!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I had so many amazing reviews last chapter, I can't even begin to tell you all how wonderful you are! I've been out of school for so long that I've forgotten how nice it is to get feedback on what I write. **

**AGAIN, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! (:**

**I feel like this chapter is going to disappoint a lot of people, and I'll just tell you this: It was really hard for me to get out, because I truly think there is no "perfect" imprinting chapter. I honestly cannot imagine what occurred between Jared and Kim, and normally I wouldn't write about something I can't even imagine – but of course, in this circumstance it's necessary and I can't just skip over it. After trying it several times from Kim's perspective, I decided I might as well do Jared's, because it's slightly better. So you'll notice that the POV switches in this chapter. **

**Also, I did get one question a lot, and I'll address that here in case anyone was wondering. Yes, Kim is a sophomore and yes, Jared is a senior. They have classes together because I modeled La Push High after my old school – where upperclassman and underclassman may share some classes, depending on their preferences and the requirements for their grade. **

**Please enjoy and review! :D**

* * *

_**Chapter Three.**_

"**I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That's the two categories. The horrible are like, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people. Crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable, because that's very lucky, to be miserable."**

_Annie Hall_

Every day, every minute, someone somewhere is suffering. Women get beaten by the men they thought they loved. A family in a hospital waiting room gets the news that their loved one didn't make it. Innocent people get shot because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

You look at suffering and all you do is ask questions. Why did this have to happen, what did I do wrong, where do I go from here? It's human nature for people to place the blame on themselves. You say to yourself, _if only I'd done something differently, this wouldn't have happened. _You torture yourself with the _if's_, as if you're not suffering enough already.

People don't think to tell you that it's not your fault. A man has a heart attack and everyone comforts his wife, but no one says, _You didn't do it, _because why would they? And all the while the woman is crying herself to sleep thinking maybe if she hadn't made him quite so many cheeseburgers he'd still be next to her.

No one ever said the car accident was anyone's fault. But the truth is it's everybody's. If Sophie had distracted my mom for one more second, if I'd come out of my room to tell her goodbye, if my dad had called her to keep her at home for just a few more minutes, it wouldn't have happened. Instead she got in her car at the time she did and maybe she was adjusting the radio to find a song she liked, because she wasn't paying attention for one second and that was it.

Chris told me about the chaos theory. How something insignificant can happen anywhere in the world and it will result in something huge somewhere else. Like someone in China blew their nose and that made my mom die. Apparently there's actual studies on things like that, but I think those are just people trying to place the blame somewhere else so they can escape it themselves.

***

* * *

It was snowing when I woke up, the first real snow of winter. It covered everything for miles and miles, and I must admit it looked promising, that snow. The fresh, clean whiteness was like a new beginning, all the problems and worries I'd had neatly covered up by it.

I took out the jackets I'd stashed in the back of my closet and hung them at the very front, in the most reachable place. When you live somewhere long enough, you know the weather patterns – and I knew this chill wouldn't be letting up for months.

In the kitchen, the news was on low while Chris read the newspaper with his glasses down his nose. He looked a lot like Dad when he sat that way, all old and wise and maybe even paternal. Chris was a defense attorney in Sequim and hated it, but he said that anyone who had to travel over seventy miles to an aggravating job with mediocre pay would complain. When I asked him why he didn't just quit, he gave me that look, the one that says, _One day when you're older, you'll understand. _

"Sophie's sick," he told me. "She's got a fever and Penny's keeping her home."

I nodded; Sophie had gotten sick at the start of winter every year since she was born. When she first started school, she said sick days were the best days. Mom and her would stay home and bake all day long, and then watch daytime cable TV. "I _love _being sick," she'd say, flashing a big smile. I'd smile back and sit down at the counter, being treated to muffins and cookies and a glass of milk.

It was a weird winter tradition, but it had been ours.

The thing about traditions is they don't always last forever like they're supposed to.

"How bad is it out there?" I asked.

"Not too bad," Chris replied. "You should be able to drive pretty easily."

_And if I don't_? I wanted to ask, but didn't.

I didn't eat breakfast, just left out the backdoor and stopped for a second, taking in the air. It was cold, smelledlike cold, a crispness in the air that made my spine ache. Across the street, I heard the waves crashing to shore, but they were somehow more subdued than before. For some reason, at that moment, I wanted to burst into tears. Just stand there for a second and let the misery have me, just for a little while. I could almost feel it, the warm stains that the tears would leave down my cheeks. But instead I took a deep breath and unlocked the doors to the car that was never supposed to be mine. I turned the heat as high as it would go, and then I didn't feel like crying so much.

"Fuck," I muttered, glancing at the dashboard that was flashing orange next to the gas symbol. The little dash was all the way on E and that always freaked me out. I made a quick U-turn and started driving the other way, to one of only two gas stations in town. It was old and falling apart, a half lit-up M flickering on the big sign that read the gas prices, which had lowered since the last time I'd been here. I pulled into the closest spot to the tiny store and filled my tank up quickly. Several people waved to me. They knew my face even if they didn't know my name: I was the town's charity case, after all. I waved back, with a grimace on my face that might appear to be a smile if you didn't look too close.

"Goddammit, Jared, you're going and that's final."

Everyone, not just me, turned their head at the authoritative voice that seemed to come from nowhere. After a second of searching, I found the source: Sam Uley, bursting out of the store with a six-pack of beer tucked under an arm and Jared Thail following behind, looking extremely pissed off.

My heart skittered and I wouldn't have been surprised if it came to a complete halt for a second. I watched the exchange as surreptitiously as I could, but after the initial outburst they both spoke in harsh undertones. Sam stood at one end of his car and Jared at the other. Finally, after a long moment of silent exchange, Jared stalked off in the opposite direction.

Was he going to _walk _to school? It was freezing, and he was wearing jeans and a white shirt, nothing else. It would take him a good twenty minutes to get to school from here; fifteen if he was fast.

I probably should have offered him a ride. He knew who I was, I think; we'd gone to school together for a long time, not to mention living in the same tiny town our whole lives. We'd crossed paths hundreds of times. But still I couldn't get myself to say those words, easy as they might be. It would be making myself vulnerable, and that was something I couldn'tdo.

I was excited in a nervous, jittery kind of way. Jared would be back at school today – he hadto be, what else could Sam have been talking about? Of course, I had no idea why Sam would be ordering Jared to go to school – or ordering him to do _anything_, for that matter.

Penny's cult theory suddenly seemed reasonable; I'd probably follow Sam, too, if he used that scary voice on me.

I saw him first in the school parking lot, talking to Courtney Loquato and Vince Pine. Though Courtney and Vince were smiling, laughing, gesturing with their hands, Jared seemed detached from the conversation. Had be _run _to school?

And he had _changed_. Gone was the Jared I remembered, the one whose every feature I had memorized. In the place of that carefree, playful boy was a man who looked like he'd seen everything there was to see, done everything there was to do. His hair wasn't long and wavy anymore, but chopped into no-nonsense style that made his face look like a statue when he didn't have any expression. He must have been about four inches taller, and so much more built. I never would have described Jared as scrawny, but before his muscles had been the long and lean kind, not completely obvious under his clothes. Now it was easy to see the indents muscles made through his clothes; his arms were thick and strong. What had he done, spent the past two and a half weeks working out?

I knew people would play the steroid card, and I could hardly blame them. If I heard it enough times, I might even start to believe it.

"Jared, mono? Really? I had mono and I was out for, like, three days," Courtney said. Courtney was one of those girls you could never really describe: she was known by everyone but not exactly "popular"; she got good grades but wasn't a nerd; she was the president of the math club but wore the title with pride. If everyone could pull off their weaknesses – or embarrassing strengths – like Courtney could, there would be no losers.

"You know my mom," Jared said.

And that was allhe said.

I shivered at the disturbing coolness to his voice, or maybe at the frost in the air, or maybe just because he had changed so much it made me feel like I'd never known who he was at all.

"Well, you're going to have a _ton _of makeup work," Courtney said sympathetically. She leaned forward slightly. She was _flirting. _"We get out for Christmas in a few weeks, and then midterms. I can help you study."

I yanked my backpack out of the backseat of my car with more force than I expected. I realized then that the only reason Courtney Loquato was tolerated was because she didn't flirt. She was too funny and smart and pretty. Girls wouldn't show it, but they were all nervous about her: she could take their boyfriends from them in the blink of an eye if she so desired. When girls like Courtney flirted, it made you want to curl up in the fetal position and evaporate. It was the secret wish of every girl in the school for her to be a lesbian just so that the threat of her would go away.

And it's shallow, but I got it. Courtney was nice – I knewshe was. She talked to me, she made me laugh. Maybe we weren't friends, but it's not like she'd ever be mean to me or ignore me. Yet I couldn't stop the feelings of hatred I felt towards her. She had everything, and it wasn't fair.

As I walked passed the tiny assemblage of the three of them, I made sure my hair covered my face from their view, because I didn't want Jared to see me at the same time he saw Courtney. I didn't want to think about the comparison he'd make.

The bell rang just as I entered the school, and still I was the first person to first period. I sat in my seat and tried to discreetly make sure I didn't smell bad. Some girl across the room noticed and gave me a funny look.

If you ask any grown person, they'll tell you that your opinion of yourself is all that matters. Who cares what other people think; that won't matter in the long-run. But ask any high-schooler across America, and the response would be almost unanimously different. _All _that matters is what people think of you.

But then, if everyone else's opinion is what matters, do you even really have one of your own?

My mom used to tell me I'd realize when I was grownup by looking in the mirror and seeing just my reflection, nothing else. I wondered if I could ever do that. I wondered if _any _girl could ever do that. When I look in the mirror, my first instinct is to cringe: bad hair, plain face. But then I look closer and see everything else that's really wrong, like how my cheekbones dominate my face and how my eyes don't match the rest of me. I think to myself, _This is who I am. This is what people see when they look at me. _

It's like seeing yourself on a video when you're little and wondering how to differentiate between the two you's: the one in your head or the one on the screen.

The late bell rang the second Jared took his seat next to me. I glanced at him to offer a small smile, one that would say: _Oh, you're back. I barely noticed you were gone. _But he didn't see, and maybe that was a good thing, because the smile probably ended up all wrong.

He seemed mad, I thought, and tired. He glared out the window of the class like he expected to be transported out there at any moment. His face looked harsh now, with this new expression on it: he looked mean, and threatening, and scary. Still perfect features, but with all the personality wiped away from them.

I tried not to look, because I didn't want to see.

Mrs. Stick commented on his having been away, and that was the only thing to get Jared to tear to the front of the room, and only for a second. He said, "I'm finishing up my makeup work at home, ma'am. I was sick," before turning away again.

Today we were doing presentations, which figured since I wasn't a good speaker and of course Jared would decide to show up the day I had to present. It was a book report, _The Metamorphosis, _and we'd all been given different aspects of the book to cover. I got lucky with "theme." While other people moaned about getting "personality deficiencies and character development," my report took all of fifteen minutes to write. Mrs. Stick liked me, or she just didn't think I could do anything at all. I noticed that more about teachers lately. They liked the ones who were weak, the ones who didn't talk much, because everyone remembers high school as being this horrible place, and people like me are prime examples that they weren't just imagining that.

When I was called on – just three minutes before the bell rang – I walked to the front of the class, my legs feeling wobbly and my heart pounding like crazy. Mrs. Stick smiled encouragingly; everyone else either watched with soft eyes, or looked away discreetly.

It was like first grade all over again, the year I'd been pushed off the swing-set and broken my leg. When I came to school the next week and it came time to show off our science fair projects, I talked about evaporation. I was so nervous that I was probably sweating, but no one looked at me funny like they usually did. They watched intently, their eyes darting to my leg and then back to my face, and I realized they didn't all of a sudden like me, they felt _bad _for me.

They say bullies target the weak, but that's a relative term. If they think you're too weak, then the pity overshadows everything else.

I looked at Jared, but he wasn't looking back. All I wanted was for him to look at me once, even if his eyes were disgusted or pitying or indifferent. I just needed to know that he _saw _me, that I wasn't invisible to him.

That I was there, that I was alive.

"The theme of this book," I began, "is rejection."

***

* * *

You're only as bad as the worst thing you've ever done.

In some people's cases, I guess that's comforting to hear. Maybe all they did was push a kid off a swing, like Vince Pine had done to me in first grade, or maybe they'd lied or cheated or stolen. Sure, they were sins, but they say God forgives as long as you apologize anyway. And it's easy to apologize to God, a lot easier than it would be to apologize to anyone else.

But me, the worst thing I've ever done is pretty horrible.

I was only eight, not that that's any excuse, but still.

What happened was one night I walked into Sophie's room and my mother was rocking her on the rocking chair that had once been in my room, singing a song that she used to sing to me. Sophie was just a tiny little bundle of blankets in her arms, fast asleep. My mother looked completely peaceful, her eyes shut lightly, her voice a perfect pitch.

When she was done with the song, she said, "I love you most of all, sweet little baby."

I was so angry my eyes watered. After everything that Sophie had done, after all those nights she'd kept everyone up crying, my mother still loved her best. I remembered when my mom had told _me _that, and I'd felt special, more loved than even Chris.

I went to my room before she could see me. I ripped up the note I'd made my mom in school that day, shredded it to pieces systematically, into tiny little squares until they were so small I couldn't anymore; you'd have never known I'd spent all of recess working on it. I sat on my bed until all the lights in the house were off.

Then I got up, into the nursery where Sophie was still sleeping. I remember it so clearly it's like a recurring dream: the way I walked into her room and picked up the pillow from the rocking chair, the very one my mother had been sitting on. The lights were off and Sophie was breathing in little baby huffs.

My eyes were streaming with tears, and I put the pillow over Sophie's head. I pressed down, until the edges of the pillows touched the mattress, until I couldn't hear Sophie breathing anymore.

It took about ten seconds for me to drop the pillow. I threw it across the room and stared in horror at my hands. Hands that could _kill _someone. That was the day I realized that you really could do anything, even the unthinkable, as long as no one's there to witness it.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, even though Sophie couldn't understand. Then I said, "I hate you," because if my mother did love her more than me, there was some kind of justice in that.

The next night, as my mom tucked me into my bed, she leaned down to kiss my forehead and whisper in my ear, "I love you most of all, sweetie."

I wanted to tell her that her lies were going to end up killing somebody someday, but I didn't know the words.

***

* * *

"He's back," Ella told me in second-period Spanish that afternoon. She sat next to me, a fortunate seating arrangement that may have saved the last shreds of any friendship we had.

"I know," I said.

"I've heard gang, cult, steroids, government-agency, and brainwash. You?"

I smiled. "Same, minus the government agency. It sounds interesting. Which department?"

Ella shrugged and then laughed, her mouth wide open. Ella had a belly laugh that was contagious, and soon I was laughing too.

"I miss you, Kim," she said once she'd stopped. She sat up in her chair and smiled sadly.

All I could think was, _I miss me, too. _

_***_

* * *

**Jared's POV:**

Something was wrong.

I could feel it, an almost imperceptible tugging behind my navel. It was that feeling of standing on a rug that could be pulled out from under your feet at any moment, except worse because I couldn't move off of it and I had no idea what it meant.

Sam would have told me, I reassured myself, if vampires were near. He would have warned me about this feeling, if it meant anything. It was probably just another side-effect of this whole wolf thing.

When you shift forms – literally phase from a man to a bear-sized wolf – your muscles become strong enough to endure almost anything, but your joints are loose and awkward. Sam told me it would go away after a few weeks, but for now I was stuck walking around feeling like I had the consistency of a jellyfish. In my human form, I felt weak and vulnerable and unprepared. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to phase back when I needed to – but I was more afraid of phasing on accident.

I'd told Sam that I needed more time to learn to control myself, but he'd had faith in me. "Jared," he'd said, "you are going to be fine. You're not a temperamental guy; just keep your cool. You need to go back to school, people are starting to talk. And it may be a long time before Paul is ready to go back."

That made me smirk. Paul, my best friend since I don't know when, had always had a temper. He was a great guy, but I wouldn't want to be on his bad side. As a werewolf, that wasn't good unless you wanted to remain in a furry state forever. It had taken me two days to phase back – after the first few hours, I wasn't pissed, but I was scared, and it was hard. For Paul, it had taken close to a week because he wouldn't stop screaming profanities at Sam and I long enough to calm down.

"Jared," Courtney Loquato said, making me look away from the window. I focused on her face: pretty, open, coy. Courtney was desirable in that she was nonconfrontational and no hassle. We could have a good time and she wouldn't be freaking out if I didn't call her back when I said I would.

Before all this, I'd been thinking about asking Courtney out, making this thing we had official. It had all started up after I'd broken up with my last girlfriend, Tia. I wasn't looking for anything at the moment – Tia and I had been dating for four months, after all, and I wasn't a total douche – but Courtney had apparently had her eye on me. She'd flirt with me and come over to my house and sometimes we'd hook up. I wasn't crazy about her, but hey – she liked me. All the guys at school were into her, because she was hot and told dirty jokes and knew how to play football. She was smart and sexy, they said, and she was easy to get into bed. When we'd started our "thing", so many rumors flew around about her that I felt like a complete jackass. It wasn't like I could just _not _ask her out.

"Can you help me with this problem?" she said, leaning in close to my side. I knew for a fact she didn't need my help – she was the president of the Math Club, for Christ's sake. But I glanced at her paper anyway and found myself confronted with an up-close-and-personal cleavage shot.

"I hope I didn't give you mono, Jared," she said, and then grinned, because she'd spoken so loudly everyone around us could hear. I realized that was probably intentional.

"Yeah, well," I said. What else _was _there to say?

"So, I'm throwing a party Friday," she continued. "I'm inviting everyone. I'm turning eighteen."

"Wow," I said, even though I wasn't interested at all. "Happy birthday."

"Thanks," she said curtly; obviously she wasn't just chatting me up for well wishes. "So will you come?"

"Sure, sure," I said as noncommittally as I could.

"And tell Paul to come too."

The bell rang and Courtney forgot all about the problem she had meant to get my help on. She waited while I packed up my things and then slipped her hand into mine as we walked out of the classroom. My surprise at her action made me take an extra second to think, and before I could remove her hand from mine, she gasped loudly.

"Jared, your hand is burning!" she cried in alarm, her eyebrows scrunched together as she looked at me.

My mouth froze around words I was forbidden to tell her; forbidden to tell anyone, really. I didn't know how to get out of this one – whenever I'd questioned Sam about what to do if my cover was blown, he'd always replied, "We'll cross that river when we get to it."

"Are you still sick? Do you need to go to the nurse?" Courtney lifted her hand and I caught it just before it made contact with my forehead, which I knew for a fact would be over a hundred and five degrees.

"I'm fine," I said quickly. "Really. I was sitting on my hands during the lecture, that's why they're so hot."

Even as I said this I began to think: Courtney was pretty easygoing, and if she freaked out over my body temperature then every other girl would too. I wasn't at liberty to tell any of them my secret – was literally bound by blood to keep the secret, except in that rare case that more than likely would not affect me - and the extreme body temperature wasn't something I had an excuse for. Did that mean I would never be with a girl again, ever?

Thoughts like that can really upset a teenage guy, especially hormonal ones who have been going through a pretty tough time lately. I started to shake, a slow build-up that started in the tips of my fingers and gradually made its way up through my arms. I knew in the seconds that followed I would need to calm down, or else I was going to do the unthinkable. But I was sore, and pissed, and worried – and the feeling in my stomach wasn't going away. It was getting worse every second, like the threat was getting closer and closer.

"Jared," Courtney was saying, but I barely heard her. "Jared! _Jared_!"

Ten, nine, eight – I could stop this, I knew I could – seven, six – Sam had faith in me, I wouldn't fail him – five, four, three – but it was so hard, and maybe it would be easier not to fight it – two, one.

I almost did it. Exploded, snapped, whatever you want to call it.

But suddenly the unexpected happened – the unthinkable and the unbelievable – and everything stopped.

The rug had been pulled out from underneath me finally, but I did not fall. Our eyes met for one brief second, across the hallway, thirty people away, but it was enough.

And suddenly, everything I was didn't matter anymore. Anything I'd ever worried about was gone. My family, my friends, my pack – they faded into the background, like a spot of white on an off-white wall, there but not really. All I could see was her. It was like I was dead, only different – it was the feeling of caring so much for one person that you didn't have enough space to care about yourself.

I understood the world and all of its complexities now. I understood why my feet were planted firmly on the ground. I knew why I was breathing, why I was born. It was all so clear; I couldn't figure out how I hadn't seen it before.

She was the sun, the Earth, the moon and all of the planets. She was air and gravity and water and food. She was my heart and lungs and organs and everything else I needed to live.

She was it.

I don't know if I'd call it an epiphany, but it left me breathless and defenseless. The worrying that followed seeing her was enough to make my stomach constrict and my knees want to give out.

Was she okay?

Why did she look so sad?

Had anything bad happened to her? Had someone upset her? Was she sick?

Did she need something? I'd gladly give her anything in the world - I'd find a way to get it to her.

She was the most precious thing in the world, but also, in my eyes, the most vulnerable. Bad things could happen to her. Someone could hurt her. I could not be around for one second, and she could be gone.

I couldn't handle thinking about that, it was too much. The world wouldn't be able to go on without her. _My _world wouldn't even exist.

"Jared." Courtney's voice was like a wisp of smoke behind me, drifting away before it ever got the chance to really be.

I had to be next to her; my feet moved on their own accord. I needed to be near her, around her, inside of her. She needed to be in my arms, where I could be sure that she would be shielded from all the bad things in the world.

She had turned around when we'd locked gazes, to her locker. She took a long time searching for a book, so long that I thought she might be stalling. When she noticed I was next to her, she jumped.

Shit. I hadn't meant to scare her. "Sorry," I said.

But I wasn't sorry I'd gone over there. I got to fully examine her now, up close. She had dark brown hair that had been twirled into a bun in the back of her head, held together with a fraying ponytail. Her eyes were the exact color of honey, melted and deep, and framed by thick lashes. Her nose was evenly shaped and her mouth was full and red, a perfect contrast to her russet skin. Her body was perfect, would fit perfect with mine, but I got the feeling there wasn't much that was holding her up.

"Oh," she said, clearly surprised that I had spoken. "It's alright."

Hearing her voice melted away all of my anxiety, if only for a second. I knew that I needed to keep her talking.

"I'm Jared," I said, and then, because I'm the world's biggest fuck-up, I asked, "What's your name?"

I had to know, because _not _knowing was the worst feeling in the world.

She looked at me for a long time, and finally, when I thought she wasn't going to reply at all, she said, "Mary. My name is Mary."

* * *

**Kim's POV:**

It's possible to convince yourself that almost anything is true. All it takes is a determined will and an unwavering mindset.

The thing is, you can't change what's real, no matter how hard you try. I could tell myself that Jared acknowledged me, that he would care about me one day, that we were meant for each other. I could tell myself that, and in my head, it could be true. But outside of my head, in the real world, it made no difference. Jared didn't know me. He hadn't been paying enough attention in the past sixteen years to even know my name.

The Jared I'd thought I'd known was a lie.

"Mary," I told him, so that I'd be a lie to him, too. "My name is Mary."

* * *

**A/N: Want to know something crazy? I posted the wrong document for this chapter twice...I'm losing my mind.**

**Like I said above, this chapter was almost impossible for me. The words just weren't flowing like they should have been, and I had to work really hard to fill in the details. That almost never happens to me, especially when I'm writing something for fun. It sucks!**

**I didn't have time to edit, either: I work two jobs and my laptop is constantly being used by my roommates. I didn't want to keep you guys waiting forever, so I just posted it. Again, sorry. **

**But if you still want to review, I would appreciate it so much! I love to hear what you all think, and any ideas or suggestions you have. **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Awesome reviews last chapter, again! I couldn't ask for better readers. **

**Warning! This chapter does include a sexual scene (don't jump to conclusions!), but it skips around all the details.**

**Read and review! :)**

* * *

**"I dreamed of you. I dreamed you were wandering in the dark, and so was I. We found each other. We found each other in the dark."**

_- Green Mile_

Chris and Penny's refrigerator was a collage of family photos, Christmas cards from years ago, and paintings that Sophie brought home from school. At home, my dad had never been able to stand anything tacked onto our refrigerator: it was sleek and stainless steel, too shiny to be touched. He had said it was tacky to decorate your house with pictures and notes. "Why do I need to look at my kids on the place I get my water from," he would ask, "when I could just look at them in real life and not mess up my appliances?"

And yet, despite that being instilled in him through childhood, Chris had grown up and gotten a household of his own where he obviously didn't think it was tacky to do that. I wondered when exactly a kid grew up and got a mind of his own.

"Your fridge," I told Chris the very same day Jared had come back to school. He'd come home early from work and was chopping up vegetables to put into a soup Penny was making.

Chris looked at the fridge and then went back to chopping. "What about it?" he asked.

"It's so…I don't know, it's so full," I said. "On the outside."

It didn't take him long to understand. He chuckled under his breath. "Yeah, I bet Dad's rolling around in his grave."

We both laughed, even though it wasn't funny, could never be funny.

"I don't know," Chris said. "I kind of like it. It's like family to me. You're proud of them, you want to show them off. What better way than fridge magnets?

I looked at it for a long time. "I think it's kind of like home," I decided.

And then I wondered how something could feel like home when it wasn't my home at all.

* * *

After dinner, I went out for a walk.

It was already dark, but the snow on the ground was so white it reflected the moonlight. There was a slight wind that made the leaves rustle in the forest next to me, a startlingly beautiful contrast to the calm ocean waves. I felt peaceful, and I realized it was because this huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

Unrequited love is heavy. If I'd known how much weight it added, I would have given it up a long time ago.

As I walked, I kept track of the houses I'd passed, as if to memorize the way home. I passed Quil Ateara's house, the biggest on the shore, a family-owned home that had been passed down for generations. Inside, the lights were dimmed, but I could vaguely make out the shape of a family eating dinner on the bottom floor. Was this what we looked like, Chris and Penny and Ethan and Sophie and I? If no one knew us, would they think we were a normal family? Or would they be able to see the lines that divided us down the middle?

I tucked my hands into the pockets of my coat, curling my fingers into the wool that retained some of the warmth from my closet.

The rustling in the forest suddenly made me afraid. Was I being followed? Was there an animal in there?

Did I care?

_It's just the wind, _I thought, and then for good measure, I said aloud, "It's just the wind." My voice was shaky and uncertain, and even to my own ears sounded fake.

The day had exhausted me, physically and emotionally, and I wondered if I could handle one more blow. Jared had been acting so strangely all through the day. After fourth period, whenever I'd look at him, he always seemed to be looking back at me. At lunch, Ella said he had been searching for someone in the lunchroom, looking all worried, until he'd finally just left. I didn't tell Ella that Jared had burst into the doors of the library in a state of complete alarm, only to calm down when he saw me eating my sandwich by the windows.

Maybe he knew that I'd lied to him. Maybe, somehow, he'd figured out that I wasn't Mary.

I laughed when I thought about that; it tasted bitter and metallic in my throat. Mary. I'd told him I was _Mary_. My mother's name had sounded so natural as it slipped out of my mouth, but now if Jared ever referred to me as that again, it would be all the more painful.

When I reached First Beach, I slipped down onto my butt and pulled my knees up to my chest. The water was silvery black, and I was overwhelmed with an urge to dip my toes in the freezing ocean. Slowly, I slipped off the ugly boots Penny had lent me and tugged at my thick socks until my feet were free. I placed the boots next to me and stood up, sucking in a sharp breath through my teeth as the bottoms of my feet touched the freezing sand.

The beach was slanted, so when I made my way to the water, it was like running downhill. I stopped just before I reached the very tip of the tide. I moved forward an inch, bracing myself for the cold, when there was quick footsteps behind me and a frantic voice, "What are you _doing_?"

I spun around just in time to see Jared Thail yank me away from the ocean. I gasped in surprise, but Jared didn't stop dragging me until we were back by Penny's boots.

"What the – " I began, but was interrupted by Jared's voice.

"What are you doing out here alone, that close to the water? Were you going to go _in_? You could have been carried away by the tide. You could have…" he trailed off, his dark eyes troubled. I was closer to him than I'd ever been before, face-to-face so that I could see the black depths of his eyes. There was a silver ring around his irises, the color of lightning.

"I wasn't going to go in," I defended myself. "I just wanted to put my feet in."

"Why?" he demanded. Then, like he'd realized how harsh his voice was, he evened it out and gently repeated, "Why?"

_Because I felt like it, _I thought. _Because no one was going to stop me. _

When I didn't answer him out loud, Jared said, "Why don't you put your shoes back on?"

I nodded and sat down, slowly tugging back on my socks and shoes, ignoring the sand that made my feet sore. Jared sat next to me while I worked at it, watching my face while I concentrated on my feet.

"How did you see me?" I asked him.

"I was out for a walk," he replied simply. "I heard you. When I saw you, I thought you were going to go in. You'd have frozen."

"Well." I frowned. "Thanks, I guess."

Neither of us made a move to get up. I was trapped, wanting to move but somehow unable to leave Jared sitting there.

"Pretty night," he offered.

"Without the rain, they always are," I said.

"Look, Kim," he began. I could tell he was about to make a speech, but I interrupted quickly.

"You called me Kim," I said. "How did you know?"

"I asked about you. I thought about it," he said. "Mary didn't seem to fit you. And then I realized you're Kim Thames, and I've known you my whole life. You were friends with Paul. You used to wear pigtails everyday in elementary school. When I was eight, you were the first girl to ever tell me I had cooties. I've got Literature and Psychology and World History with you. You live across from me." He shrugged helplessly. "You just looked different today."

There was a drawn-out, uncomfortable silence.

"Sorry I lied," I told him finally.

"Sorry I had to ask," he said.

It felt like Jared and I were even now. I couldn't believe I was here, sitting next to him in the sand with no one else in sight. It was every dream I'd had for the last four years, but now it meant less, because I wanted it less. I was tired of wasting my energy on him.

"Are you mad?" he asked softly.

"Not mad," I replied. "Resigned. I'm not noticeable. It's not a big deal. I'm not sure I'd want to be noticeable, anyway."

Something about what I'd said made Jared stiffen. "There's nothing _not _noticeable about you," he said. "I'm am idiot. That doesn't mean everyone else is."

"No, no, it's not just you," I insisted. "I'm too plain for people to really notice…No, that's not true. They notice me, they just don't care enough to ask my name."

"You're not plain," Jared said.

I laughed. Of course, out of everything I'd said, that's what he'd pick out. I had no doubt that Jared knew just how to charm a girl.

"You're not," he said. "You're beautiful, you know that."

I let out a burst of shocked laughter this time; it sounded slightly hysterical.

"Did I embarrass you?" he asked, sounding pleased. When I glanced at him, he was grinning.

"You didn't _embarrass_ me," I said. "I just think it must be nice to be you."

"How so?" he challenged.

"Well," I said, pausing to think. "You're popular, you're nice, everyone likes you, even the teachers. You can cause the school to go into a state of panic when you're not there for two weeks. You're confident enough in yourself that you think you can convince any girl that every word out of your mouth is true."

He huffed. "That's not true."

I didn't listen. "As opposed to me…I could go away for two _months_, and I don't think anyone in the whole school would notice."

"I'd notice," Jared said seriously.

I smiled. "Well, you would _now_."

"You talk more than I expected you would," he said suddenly. I turned to give him a look and he said, "No, really. You do. I thought you'd be shy, but you're not. You speak in more than one or two sentences."

"Not everybody who doesn't have friends is shy," I pointed out. Then, because that stereotype irritated me to no end, I went into a rant. "Or maybe we're so introverted that any human interaction makes us over the moon with excitement and we can hardly contain ourselves. Maybe we're freaks who spend all their time pining for a popular boy like you to talk to us."

"I never said any of that," Jared said. "I only meant that when I saw you, you struck me as the shy type. You never talked to me before today."

"You never _looked _at me before today," I snapped. I pushed myself up with my hands and began storming away, but Jared was in front of me in an instant, his hands wrapped firmly around my upper arms.

"I'm sorry I said that," he said, sincerity melting into every word.

"Let me go," I demanded, squirming out of his strong grip. It was clear he didn't want to hurt me, because he slackened his grip immediately. "I want to go home."

"I'll walk you," he said immediately. "You've got to be freezing."

"I can get home on my own," I snapped, a little more harshly than the moment called for. "You stay here. You were enjoying yourself."

"Kim, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I upset you," he begged, catching up with me again when I walked away.

"Stop that!" I told him, irritated.

"Stop what?"

"Stop apologizing for everything," I clarified. "I don't care. I don't care that you're sorry! It doesn't matter to me anymore. It doesn't make any difference."

I wasn't even angry at Jared – I was angry at myself. This was my fault, all these stupid feelings I'd felt for him. It wasn't his fault that I'd been stupid and immature and irrational enough to believe I loved him. And now, here he was, feeling bad because I had absolutely no clue what love felt like.

"God, why do people always do that?" I asked.

"What?" Jared sounded thoroughly confused, like keeping up with me was giving him a headache.

"Apologize for stuff that isn't their fault," I said. "Like saying they're sorry is going to make everything better."

I could tell Jared could see that this was about more than just us, but he didn't let it on. "Maybe because saying you're sorry makes you feel less helpless," he said. "Sometimes there isn't anything people can do _but_ say they're sorry."

"Is that why you apologized to me?" I asked. "To feel less helpless?"

He thought about that. I felt like I could see his thought process in his eyes.

"I apologized because not apologizing wasn't an option," he said truthfully.

"Good answer," I said.

* * *

"Are you cold?" Jared asked me as we walked back toward our houses. I was staring straight in front of me, shivering, wishing to just be back in my warm bed.

"Of course I'm cold," I said. "Aren't you?"

"I told you, I don't really notice the cold." Jared smiled. He began taking off his light fleece jacket and wrapped it over my shoulders.

"Jared, you're going to get sick, even if you're freakishly warm-blooded," I insisted, but the warmth on the inside of his fleece was such that I probably wouldn't have let go of it even if he'd asked for it back.

"I'm really more concerned with you getting sick," he said simply. "You're shaking like crazy." He looked like he wanted to say something else – _do _something else –but then he looked away, tilting his head up toward the sky.

I didn't know how to reply, so after a while I filled in the silence by saying, "I hate the cold."

Jared looked down at me, his face breaking into a full-on grin. "Yeah?"

I smiled back. I felt like I was missing something. "I want to go to college in Florida," I told him. "Hawaii, Texas. Somewhere hot. Somewhere where winter is nonexistent."

Just like that, the smile slipped off his face. "You're a sophomore, right?" he asked.

"Yeah. It's never too early to think about the future, though!" I imitated the voice of our overly-excitable school guidance counselor and clapped my hands together.

Jared didn't reply, and I mentally slapped myself for obviously saying something wrong. I felt like a different person, new and brave and bold, but also like one wrong word could send me back to square one.

"Where are you going to college?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't think I'm going to college," Jared said. "I applied to tons of places, you know, to keep my options open. But for now I think I'm going to have to put college on the backburner."

_Why? Does Sam not want you to go to college_? The question seemed unbelievably rude, not to mention personal, so I kept my mouth shut and nodded.

Our shoes made crunching sounds in the snow, an odd symphony of Jared's bold, sure steps and my own careful ones. His legs were so long that I struggled to keep up, even though I could tell he was slowing down for my sake. Trying to match his pace, I placed my foot in front of me haphazardly and ended up sliding on a piece of slushy ice.

I braced myself for the fall, squeezing my eyes shut, but the ice never came in contact with my butt. Instead a warm arm slid around my waist to keep me steady, supporting most of my weight. I was surprised I didn't take Jared down with me.

"Oh!" I said.

Jared looked at me worriedly, his eyes raking my body to make sure I was okay. I thought that was pretty weird, considering he knew I hadn't fallen, but also because no one had really looked at me that way in a long time.

I stared back, directly in his eyes as he examined me, wondering if this was real or just a dream designed to keep my crush firmly intact.

"Thanks," I said.

He didn't let go of my waist, and we were trapped in a game: him looking at me, me looking anywhere but at him. Finally, when I felt naked and exposed under his gaze, I pulled away, and he didn't fight it. We picked up an even pace again.

"Kim, I have to ask," Jared began. He sounded reluctant, strained, like he'd rather do anything _than_ ask.

"Shoot," I said.

"Jeremy and you…" he trailed off, obviously wanting me to pick up from there.

I didn't. I tugged at a loose string on my coat, closing my eyes.

"You don't have to tell me," he said. "I didn't mean to pry."

"That's history," I told him, aiming my eyes heavenward, at the moon that was the only certain thing in this unusual night. "History."

* * *

Jeremy Pipkins worked at the only official restaurant in La Push, as a busboy and sometimes-waiter if the Saturday dinner rush was heavy enough. I was a hostess that summer, the summer between seventh and eight grade. At thirteen-years-old, it was the only job I'd been able secure, and then only because my dad was good friends with the manager. I spent six hours a day, five days a week smiling and saying, "Welcome to Landry's. Party for…?"

But the pay was reasonable and I got to hang out with Dan, the other host, and Ella, who had somehow managed to snag the position of a waitress.

According to Ella, Jeremy had been after me since day one, but that isn't true. In reality, Jeremy noticed me after I caught him smoking behind the building on his lunch break. I'd been heading out for the day, ready to head home to help my mom with dinner, but instead I ended up talking to Jeremy for the better part of an hour.

"Is it legal for you to smoke?" I asked him, feeling uncomfortable with the cigarette he held so casually between his fingers. "You're only fifteen, aren't you?"

Jeremy let out a slow chuckle, like I was so naïve, and I flushed indignantly.

"Just wait till you get to high school," he said like it was an answer to my question.

I didn't talk to him often, but when I did, it started to feel like a rollercoaster that was slowly climbing to the top. He would flirt with me shamelessly, saying how pretty I was, how I was going to be so popular in high school. And I was slowly starting to like him – it was gradual, not like the way it was with Jared.

But, I would tell myself, Jared wasn't going to notice me. And this was _Jeremy Pipkins_, and he was going to be a sophomore just like Jared, and if I tilted my head a certain way he almost looked like Jared.

So when he kissed me, I didn't complain. And when he said he was so crazy about me he couldn't stand it, I believed him.

I wasn't going to let it go any farther, despite the fact that every time we made out, his hand seemed to sneak farther and farther up my shirt.

"You're amazing," he told me, over and over again, his lips trailing down my neck.

_What is this? What are we? Will this last past the summer? Is this just for fun? _

There were so many things I wanted to ask him, but I didn't want to sound clueless and immature, so I kept them inside. And every time I started to doubt what I was doing, I told myself that Jared was doing the same thing with another girl, probably at the exact same moment – which worked in theory, but when put into place in reality had disastrous results.

It was the Fourth of July party that the Council threw every year, and everyone was there. Neighbors and friends were all mixed together with vaguely recognizable acquaintances, like the lady from the grocery store and the man who delivered mail. Not to mention every single person I'd ever gone to school with and their entire family.

I wasn't looking for Jared, exactly. I was standing in the corner of the rented ballroom, talking to Ella and our friend Marissa. Jeremy had left to get me a drink a long time ago. Ella was saying something about how her dress was giving her boobs no breathing room when I saw him: Jared Thail, wrapped around some giggling girl, taking her by the hand out of the double doors.

I saw red. I knew what they were going to do, and it made me want to cry.

Except now I had an opportunity to get even, at least in my head. I walked away from Ella and Marissa with a slight wave and half-smile and found Jeremy across the floor, chatting with some guy near the drinks.

"Hey, Kim," he said when he saw me. I got the feeling he'd have rather I just left him alone.

"Hey," I said. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

Jeremy nodded, following me out of the room and into the warm, wet air. He looked at me questioningly and when it was clear I was giving him no more directions, he led me to his car, a minivan he'd inherited from his grandparents. It was big and spacious, but it smelled like old people.

In the backseat, we kissed for a long time, Jeremy's hands invading all of me. His mouth tasted like smoke and peppermints. I gasped when our lips parted and Jeremy started unbuttoning the dress my mother had gone all the way to Portland to buy me for the party. It was blue and silky and slipped right through his fingers.

"No," I said breathlessly, shaking my head. "No, Jeremy, don't…"

Maybe he didn't hear me, or maybe he was just ignoring me. Jeremy slid off my dress easily, climbing on top of me so that his weight pinned me to the seat. I couldn't move at all, no matter how I tried to squirm away. I shook my head more frantically.

"No, Jeremy, I don't want –"

He placed a kiss on my mouth and then swiftly replaced his mouth with his hand, so much pressure that I couldn't breathe. "I'm so glad you took me out here," he said, reminding me that I was the one who'd done this. He positioned himself on top of me, not looking into my eyes, concentrating on the act itself.

_I didn't want this, _I thought. _I couldn't have wanted this. _

Jeremy was quick and rough, not acknowledging that it hurt me. When he sped up, I didn't feel anything but a sharp pain, and when he released I faked it so that it could be over. I wanted to belong to myself again.

He pulled out finally, giving me a quick peck on the lips while he pulled his pants on. He couldn't have noticed the tears streaming down my face.

"Can you…can I…I need to fix myself up," I told him. "You go in. I'll be right there."

"Alright, babe," he said. He climbed to the front and let himself out easily. I stayed in the backseat, unable to believe what had just happened, unwilling to accept it.

My eyes stung with tears as I wondered how many times Jeremy had done this. If he even cared about me. If he'd call me tomorrow, or if he'd gotten what he wanted now.

"Oh, God," I said, leaning down and clutching my stomach. "Oh God oh God oh God." I started sobbing so hard it made my teeth chatter and my stomach ache. I fumbled around for my dress and pulled it back on, because the material wasn't tainted like I was.

What happened between Jeremy and I could have gone away after a couple of weeks, but instead he decided he'd tell everyone about it. Every story was different, but the gist was the same: I was easy, I was a slut.

By the time school started, everyone knew, even in the middle school. Eventually it got around to my mother, who announced suddenly one day that I was going to the doctor. She put me on the pill and said that I needed to wait until I was ready, physically and emotionally, and we both pretended like her advice hadn't come too late.

* * *

**A/N: Kind of lame place to end a chapter, I know. But I can't think up anymore interesting things for Jared and Kim to talk about on their walk without it being too weird or rushed. If you want to know what happens next, it's simple: Jared walks Kim home. They say goodbye. Kim falls asleep. Jared watches her window. **

**Wasn't that such a chill way for them to resolve the Mary thing? Personally I thought it was just so **_**them**_**; they barely know each other, Kim has been in love with Jared too long to fight with him, and Jared would die before purposely upsetting Kim. I can't imagine them fighting just yet – their bond is too new. **

**Have you ever done something stupid and irrational like Kim when you were younger? I have! Thirteen was such a bad year for me, I was so obsessed with having a boyfriend and being loved and all that shit. I think a lot of us were. So yeah, Kim was totally defenseless and push-over-y, but she was thirteen-years-old, and here's this cute fifteen-year-old guy basically saying he loves her. Her mom never talked to her about sex and she had low self-esteem to begin with. Honestly, I can't blame her. **

**You know what I'm going to say, I'm sure it's already getting old…Reviews & Suggestions make my day! **


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. **

**I suck! **

**I have been **_**so **_**unbelievably busy these past few weeks, moving from London back to the States, visiting family over the holidays and trying to get settled at my new job. I can't believe it has been so long since I've updated. I'm such an ass. I'm going to try my best to make it up to you guys, because you are absolutely **_**amazing**_**, every single one of you. **

**Sorry if this chapter is sort of lame. I churned it out in less than thirty minutes and didn't have time to edit fully.**

**Oh, and Merry Christmas. (:**

**NEW NOTE: This is reposted from yesterday. I've heard from a few people that it didn't send out alerts for the new chapter, and I was really upset that I only got two reviews! So hopefully this fixes things. Sorry if I'm being annoying...haha. **

* * *

**Chapter Five**

"**Let's say there was a little girl, and from the time she could understand, she was taught to fear... let's say she was taught to fear daylight. She was taught that it was her enemy, that it would hurt her. And then one sunny day, you ask her to go outside and play and she won't. You can't be angry at her, can you?"**

_- Great Expectations_

The average person spends three years of their life waiting.

Waiting in line, waiting in traffic, waiting for a phone call – just waiting. Three years is a long time. Longer than most relationships last, longer than nearly all break-out singer's careers, longer than some people ever live.

The way I see it, I'd spent four years of my life waiting for Jared. Already I'd waited longer than most people do their whole lives, and I was not even seventeen. I wondered if normal people ever got what they were waiting for. Did waiting in all of those lines ever pay off, or did they, looking back, wish that they would have spent the time another way?

But then, you never know what's worth it and what's not.

* * *

The early morning sunlight streamed in through a crack in my blinds, and I blanched, pulling the covers higher over my head. My room was comfortably chilly and I was so comfy I didn't think I could move. It would probably take Penny an hour or so to notice that I hadn't gotten up, and then it would be too late to go to school anyway…

But for some reason, I got up. Maybe because it was a Friday, so there was really no point in missing anyway. Or because I had a two tests. Or because, even though I would never admit it to myself, I wanted to see Jared. A lot.

It wasn't just because I could stare at him all through class. Now, I had something to look forward to, _truly _– the prospect that he might strike up a conversation with me again. It seemed unbelievably rude that he would not say anything at all, considering all that talking we'd done last night. But I didn't know the etiquette for these types of things, and besides, I had a feeling Jared did exactly what he pleased, nothing more and nothing less.

"We don't have enough Christmas decorations," was what I heard when I entered the kitchen. Penny sounded anxious and a little irritated, placing her hands on her never-returned-to-former-size hips.

I tried to stay out of the conversation, which I could tell, from the tone of Penny's voice and the look on Chris's face, was about to turn into an argument. I hid behind my carefully straightened hair and ducked into the fridge to grab a Gatorade.

"Where's Soph?" I asked Penny, but she didn't hear me, because Chris was talking to her.

"Honey, we've got enough decorations," he said, sounding exasperated. "We don't need to go spending a bunch of money on things we don't need."

I opened my mouth to try to ask my question again, but Penny opened hers, too, and the words out of her mouth abruptly cut off all possibility for normal conversation this morning.

"We could unpack their things, you know!"

As she said it, Penny's face pinked, knowing that she'd crossed the line. We didn't talk about my parents things, locked away in the shed in the backyard, untouched and unwanted.

No one says it, but opening the boxes is the equivalent of giving up. Because the second they're open and the dusty Christmas ornaments are out, we're shitting all over our parents memory and everything they wanted for us. We didn't turn out the way they planned, but that was okay, as long as nothing of theirs was there to witness it.

"Penny." Chris glanced at me pointedly.

Even though the look on his face clearly read _We'll talk about this later_, Penny didn't stop talking. She babbled quickly, her face still tinged all the way to her roots. "I know it's horrible and you don't want to. But, well, they can't stay in there forever. It would be nice for Kim and Sophie to have some familiar decorations around. All the books say – "

"I don't give a shit what the books say!" Chris snapped. He was flushed too. "God, I'm not going to use my mothers' decorations!" He said it as if the very idea was completely insane.

"Okay. Okay. I'm sorry." Penny closed her eyes and took a deep breath, meditation-style. "You're right. I…I just want what's best."

"Well, you don't always know what's best," Chris hissed at her. "It's not up to you to decide."

Penny's eyes welled up, and she nodded, clutching a dirty dishrag in her hands for support. Chris didn't seem to notice, or he simply didn't care. He picked up his messenger bag and said, "I'm going to work."

"Alright," Penny called, because he was already halfway out the door. "I love you!" she said, but the door slammed closed at the same moment, making us both flinch.

I debated whether or not to simply leave the room, walk away and not ask questions, because it was worse that way. But Penny had her back to me, and it was obvious from the way she held her shoulders that she was crying.

"Penny," I said softly. "Don't cry. He's always been that way. So sensitive."

Penny shook her head. "No, it's not him. It's me, isn't it? I don't know how to handle this. It's been a year and a half, Kim, and I still don't know what to do or how to act. Is this supposed to last forever?"

There wasn't a right answer to that question, so I kept my mouth shut.

"Some days, I feel like he's fine, the same man I married, just Chris. And then he goes and does this, and I'm so lost. I can't help him, I can't help you, I can't even help Sophie."

_Me, either. _

"You help me," I said in a small voice, wanting to sound as sincere as possible, but failing when my mouth wobbled. I realized I was about to cry, so I bolted the hell out of the kitchen and into the hall.

Sophie was standing there, her button nose red from whatever cold she'd caught, her huge eyes sparkling inside the sockets.

"What's wrong?" I asked, pressing a palm to her burning forehead.

But that wasn't the problem, I guess. Sophie shook her head and batted away my hand.

"Kim," she said in that pure little girl voice, "how come Mommy and Daddy never fought like that? Was it because they loved each other more?"

_No, _I thought. _It was because they loved everything else less. _

* * *

* * *

I was late to school, because Sophie had wanted me to tuck her into bed before I left, which turned into a fifteen minute ordeal of trying to make her smile. The results were pitiful, barely even a wobbling of the lips, but I took what I could get.

I went to the front office to get a tardy note, a pink slip otherwise known as the "extra-hour-of-sleep-ticket" that the receptionist lived to toss around to everyone who needed one. La Push Reservation High had no penalty for tardiness that I was aware of, not even if you were late every single day of the year.

I had to state my reason, choosing between "appointment," "slept in," "family issue" or "other." Family issue would have been appropriate, but I didn't like the way it sounded, so instead I circled "other." The receptionist frowned sympathetically and told me to give it to my first period teacher.

Mrs. Stick accepted it without a word, ushering me to my seat, and my heart fell because Jared wasn't in the seat next to me. He was skipping, he _had _to be. It made me sad that he wasn't the least bit anxious to see me, considering he was the only reason I came to school.

I knew better than to get my hopes up like I had, and I was overwhelmed by a rush of humiliation that made my face burn.

Ten minutes into class, I slipped out to use the restroom. The hallway was completely empty, but I could hear noise coming from behind the doors of all of the classrooms. Just as I passed an art class, I heard a loud burst of laughter, which always made me uncomfortable.

As I was washing my hands in the restroom, I heard loud footsteps out in the hall, getting closer and closer at an alarming pace, almost like they were running. I frowned in the mirror.

"Kim," I heard being called softly, in a whisper-voice but slightly louder. Even from twelve feet away, I could tell it was Jared.

Oh, fuck.

I'd put my hair up in a ponytail when I realized that Jared wasn't here today – it was more comfortable, and I didn't have anyone to attempt to impress. Now, I pulled off the elastic band and tried to fluff my hair with my hands. I happily acknowledged that I looked more presentable than I might on a regular day, since I'd put an amount of effort into getting ready that morning. There was a tiny breakout near my right eyebrow that was covered neatly with concealer and, in a spontaneous moment very unlike me, I'd pilfered a tube of brown eyeliner from Penny that made my eyes pop.

So when I stepped out of the bathroom, I felt confident and optimistic, two feelings that were boosted when Jared took a look at me.

It was so weird for him to stare at me this way when he looked like a supermodel leaned against the row of lockers, his thumbs in the pockets of his pants and his hair ruffled like he'd just rolled out of bed.

"Hey," I said breathlessly. "How'd you know I was here?"

"You weren't in class when I got there, but your stuff was, so…" He shrugged, obviously not touching on the obvious question of _why _he'd come looking for me.

"You were late," I said, and then felt stupid for bringing up something that was probably insignificant for him.

"Yeah," he said. "I, uh – I overslept."

He didn't _look _like he'd overslept – in fact, he looked like he hadn't gotten any sleep at all. There were rings of purple under his eyes and his skin looked sallow beneath the tan, like not only had he stayed up all night, but he'd stayed up all night _worrying _up something.

"Ah," I said.

"You look really pretty today," he told me, sounding like he'd just blurted it out. He didn't blush like I would have, had I been in his position. Instead, he added, "That color. It, uh, looks nice with your skin and…" He rubbed behind his neck awkwardly, trailing off.

"Thanks." I was wearing a clean white long-sleeved t-shirt, my old Northface fleece stuffed inside my locker. My mother had always told me that white was a good contrast with my tan skin, but I didn't often wear it because white and the rain don't mix.

"We should probably go back to class," Jared said, blowing air out of his tight lips. "Before Mrs. Stick gets suspicious."

"Yeah," I agreed immediately.

"I'll give you a minute head-start?" he suggested.

I nodded and took off down the hall. My heart was beating erratically, unused as I was to being around Jared in a school setting. It was different, somehow, than being with him at the beach. At school, people could see us and make the assumption that we were something that we weren't.

I practically fell into my seat in Lit, making a point not to look at the door once. No one glanced at me, anyway, because Mrs. Stick had begun a movie that we would be working on next week – _Romeo and Juliet. _Possibly one of my least favorite scripts of all time, I tried not to be critical as I watched the Montagues and Capulets duke it out. Jared slipped into his seat just as I rolled my eyes at something that was going on onscreen.

"What? You don't like this movie?" he whispered. Our seats were pressed up close together, since everyone had moved up to get a better view of the small television at the front of the classroom.

I shook my head, embarrassingly dazed by his proximity.

"Really?" he asked interestedly. "I thought girls ate this stuff up."

Mrs. Stick, absorbedly watching the movie, hushed us rudely.

I clicked the pen that I was using to take notes with and wrote in a margin on a blank page of my notebook. _Not me_, I scribbled.

Jared smiled and tugged the notebook towards him. He pulled a pencil out of his pocket and wrote, _Why not? Not into the romance thing? _

His handwriting was slanted and artsy, messy but still legible.

_No, that's not it. It's the _

I broke off, staring at the page until it blurred. I knew the reason why I didn't like Romeo and Juliet, but I'd never said it to anyone, barely even thought it to myself. So instead of the truth, I gave him something that was also true. I continued,

_whole overdramatic angle. I don't believe in the whole love-at-first sight thing. I think Romeo's a player. And an idiot._

Jared looked amused by what I'd written. He wrote something, and then crossed it out and wrote something else.

I took the notebook, wondering what he hadn't wanted me to see. Underneath the black cover-up was _Poor Juliet._

But I could have sworn that the thick black strokes of pen were covering up the words: _That figures. _

I looked at him, wondering what in the world that would mean.

* * *

* * *

At lunch, like always, I went to the library. Mr. Stark was organizing the non-fiction section looking like he wanted nothing more than for someone to end his misery. I pulled out the chips I'd packed in my bag and starting eating quickly, before he could ask for my assistance.

"Smooth move, but I'm finished anyway," Mr. Stark called over his shoulder.

I grinned. "Hey, you'll never guess what!"

He climbed down from the ladder and examined my expression with curiosity. "Well, don't you look happy today," he observed confusedly.

I sighed. How crazy was it to believe that I was actually happy for once?

"Seriously, Kim. What's the story? Why is your face about to split down the middle from that big smile? Are you doing that drug that all the young people are crazy about, what is it, Ecstasy?"

"No," I said impatiently. "I'm not on drugs. It's not that…it's – well, you see – "

Suddenly I didn't want to tell him, because I didn't want to know what he'd say. Probably he'd warn me that Jared could be using me, and I wasn't sure if I could handle that. Anything he said certainly wouldn't be uplifting, and I wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

"Spit it out, Kim! I'm dying here," he snapped, looking at me from his desk.

"It's Jared," I said, deflating. "He's talking to me, a lot. I ran into him at the beach yesterday and I talked to him in the hall today. We passed notes in Lit."

"_What_?" Mr. Stark's face was the picture of surprise.

"I'm not lying," I insisted. "And he's really nice, Mr. Stark! I think we could be…friends."

"And that's what you want? To be friends?" asked Mr. Stark, his wise eyes sympathetic.

"Well, sure," I said. "Why wouldn't I want to be friends with him?"

"Don't settle, Kim," he insisted, as he had so many times before. "You can continue on with this shitty Jared fantasy that might never go anywhere, or you could actually find someone who likes you for _you. _What about that Tanner boy?"

"His pants are too tight," I said. "He's skinnier than me."

But as far as boyfriends go, I could do worse than Tanner Otis. He was mildly cute and was always nice to me. I knew that he had a crush on me, because boys like him always go for the slightly weird girls. I think Tanner liked me because he thought I was troubled, and he thought he was, too.

"You find something wrong with every boy who isn't Jared," Mr. Stark snapped. "You can't compare everyone to him. You'll never move on that way."

The conversation was not going the way I'd hoped. I'd subconsciously wished that Mr. Stark would tell me that this meant Jared had finally fallen for me and help me plan what to do. I didn't have anyone else to say those kind of things to me.

"I don't compare them to him," I retorted. "I just – "

I broke off as the door to the library burst open and there was Jared Thail in all of his masculine glory. I was happy to note that even Mr. Stark, Jared critic of the century, looked a little surprised at how good he looked.

"Kim," he said, voice heavy.

"Oh, hey, Jared," I said quietly, turning my eyes down towards the table, wondering if he'd overhead what I'd been saying and humiliated by the idea.

"Why aren't you at lunch?" he asked.

"I eat here most days," I said. "It's, um, quieter."

Jared smiled, placing his tray of food down across from me. "Mind if I join you? I could use a break from the noise myself."

"Yeah, of course."

I watched him as he devoured his cheeseburger in four bites, chugging down some Gatorade in between. The way he ate, you would think he hadn't had anything to eat in weeks. I was happy to notice he did not chomp on his food or have any other weird eating habits, as those were very annoying to me.

"Don't you have anything to eat?"

I motioned to my bag of Lays in front of me, and he frowned.

"Come on – you've gotta have more than that." He pushed his full tray toward me. "Take something."

"No, you look hungry," I countered.

"I'm fine," he said. "Take whatever you want."

I could feel Mr. Stark's eyes glued to me from across the library; it made me feel awkward about this whole thing. I reached out for an apple and bit into it slowly, aware that Jared, too, had his eyes trained on me.

"You know, it's hard to eat when there are two people watching you," I snapped finally.

Jared looked confused, like he hadn't realized there was anyone else in the library. Mr. Stark let out a low whistle, confused and maybe impressed by my boldness. I shot a look at them both, irritated. "What?"

"Nothing," Jared said, and shrugged.

"Where do you normally eat lunch?" I asked him, not really wanting to know the answer. Sitting with me must have been a boring change of pace for him, considering all of his friends were popular and fun to be around.

"Uh, well, with Paul normally," he said. "And, uh, Vince Pine, Courtney Loquato…Melanie Shiffer…Tia Summers?"

He said their names like I wouldn't know who they were, though he'd basically just named the five most popular people in school. I wondered what went on at the lunch table, what they talked about – _who _they talked about.

"Why aren't you sitting with them today?" I asked, unable to resist.

"I just…wanted to be here," he said simply, raising his eyes to meet mine. They were so cute and sad, like a Basset Hound's.

"Courtney won't like that," I mumbled under my breath.

He heard; of course he did. His eyes examined my face closely. "I don't really care what Courtney likes or doesn't," he said. "I mean, she's…we're not even close."

"I thought you guys were together, or something," I said, losing my confidence at the end.

"We are _not _together," he said with so much conviction I actually believed him.

"Oh," I said dumbly.

"I'm not with anyone," he clarified.

"Oh," I repeated.

Mr. Stark cleared his throat loudly from his desk, making both Jared and I glance over and break our silent staring contest.

"Something in your throat?" I asked him sharply.

"Hmm? Oh, yes," he said. He coughed again for good measure.

When Jared wasn't looking, I shot Mr. Stark a glare that he blatantly ignored. I sighed and fingered the straps on my backpack, vividly picturing an escape route in my head.

Several times, Jared tried to start up a conversation, but I only supplied him with half-hearted, one-word answers. I didn't have enough energy to try to impress him.

After a while, he caught on to the cold-shoulder. "You have questions for me," he said. His dark eyes turned impossibly darker.

"Why are you talking to me?" I asked, sounding like I'd taken a breath after holding it in for a minute.

"Because I want to," he answered promptly.

"_Why_?"

"Is it so weird that I want to get to know you better?" he asked.

"Yeah, kind of," I said. "You never showed any interest before. Even Paul…"

I don't really remember what I was going to say. _Even Paul knows my name. Even Paul made an attempt to acknowledge my existence. _Either would work, but they were irrelevant.

"Paul says that you're a cool girl," Jared replied. "I guess you've known him a long time?" That last words came out strangled, like they burned on the way out.

I shrugged. "Our mom's…friends." I skipped over the "are," "were" issue because no matter which way I used it, it would hurt.

Jared watched me closely, his eyes darting all around mine.

When I couldn't stand that any longer, the masked concern underneath the seemingly normal exterior, I said, "So, speaking of Paul…where is he?"

"Sick," Jared answered in a rehearsed monotone. "Probably the same thing as me."

I frowned. "It must have been bad. You were out for a long time."

"Yeah…mono," he said.

My immature side giggled at the thought of Paul catching Jared's mono and what that entailed, but I managed to keep it under the surface. Instead, I said, "Oh. I had that in seventh grade. I lost ten pounds."

As if my words had inspired him to, Jared slunk down in his seat, making himself look slighter. It was hopeless. I wasn't one to lust over the overly muscular men, but something about Jared's huge arms was extremely attractive. I could imagine them wrapped around me. I bet they'd be warm.

Suddenly, I was aware of the way Jared was looking at me – _really _aware. My cheeks slowly turned pink until I was flaming. And there was _nowhere to put my hands. _I stared at them for a while, lying limply on the table, and then nervously tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.

I heard the muffled vibration of a phone, and saw Jared swiftly pull out a beaten up Motorola. He shot an apologetic look at me and put it to his ear. "Hello?" he answered gruffly. He listened for a second and then quickly said, "No, I can't now…seriously, no…yeah, something important. C'mon…God, fuck you, Sam." The last words were low, like he didn't want me to hear them. When he snapped his phone shut, he turned pleading eyes toward me. "Shit, I'm sorry, Kim. I've gotta go."

I waved my hand in the air affably. "Go ahead. No big deal."

"I'm sorry," he apologized again anyway. "I'll see you…tomorrow?"

Something about his voice got me. Like he didn't want to wait that long, or something.

"Yeah, tomorrow," I agreed with a smile. "See you."

He looked like he wanted to say something more, but then he turned and walked away, running a hand through his hair on the way out.

I stared at the door for a while longer and then looked at Mr. Stark. He cocked an eyebrow at me and started to whistle. The gesture clearly meant, _No, I do not support this. _

I sighed. No one else would, either.

* * *

***

After school, I drove all the way to Forks, where the only nice café within a forty mile radius was located. La Push was somewhat secluded from the rest of the Olympic Peninsula, located on the outskirts of the shore, with cliffy terrain and winded roads. The housing developments were located so far away from the main roads that anyone driving by wouldn't notice them.

The place was called Angelique's, and it was a quaint little coffee shop that also served biscottis and croissants. I ordered a large coffee and a chocolate croissant and took my favorite booth in the far back corner, where I could see the traffic of people walking in. Most people didn't stay, just ordered a quick coffee for the road before heading back to work or home or whatever real-world responsibilities awaited them. For some reason, I felt very distant from those people, having no commitment to be anywhere of my own.

I mean, yes, Chris and Penelope would notice if I didn't arrive home before dark. But would they worry? Unlikely. They'd probably assume I went off with someone from school for a little while, or maybe took a walk on the beach and ended up staying for a while. Not until much later tonight would they actually consider the option that I got lost, or ran away.

I thought about calling them and leaving them a message like, _Yeah, I'm just going to head out on my own for a couple of days. See ya. _I wanted to know what they'd say.

When I checked my watch and it was already four-thirty, I grabbed my keys and headed out the door, because even if no one was waiting for me, I could still pretend. My car took a while starting up, but somehow managed the drive home on the slippery roads. It was only at the start of my neighborhood that the engine made a quiet sort of purring sound and proceeded to stop working. Me, having no experience with cars, did the only thing I could think of and tried jamming the keys in the ignition and starting it up for the next five minutes before finally giving up. I sighed roughly and leaned my head on my steering wheel before opening the door and starting the walk to my house, hopefully for Chris's assistance.

There weren't many houses on the road, but it was a long street, and it was cold outside. I was already too far away from my car to go back when the idea to bring my jacket along dawned on me. I started to shiver uncontrollably, which didn't make for a steady walk.

When I was only a few yards away from my house, I heard the yelling. My first thought was, _Chris finally snapped. _And then I heard what they were saying.

"…your fucking fault, you fucking moron! If you hadn't gotten me out of class for that _fucking _wild goose chase, I'd know exactly where she was!" This voice was yelling so viciously I felt gooseflesh break out on my skin, completely unrelated to the cold.

"We're going to find her," said another loud but calmer voice. "Calm down. You need to calm down and focus. Where could she have gone?"

"I don't know. God, I don't know!" The screaming voice was now tortured, on the verge of tears. "I've looked everywhere! Her freaking useless family has no clue. She could be lost. She could be hurt. She could have gone into the fucking ocean. She could have…oh, my God…she could have – "

"Stop it!" commanded the second voice. I was getting closer, almost to the point where I could see the source of the noise. "She's fine. Maybe…she went to Forks. Or Port Angeles. She could be anywhere, but I'm sure she's fine."

"I can't _look _everywhere, I can't be everywhere at once! Where do I start? What if I go to wrong way? You gotta send Paul east, and you go north, and I'll go south. I can cover ground fast, maybe I can – "

Paul? My jaw open, I sped up my pace to round the corner that would reveal the men. It couldn't be…

"Jared, we can't send out a search party yet. Let's just wait an hour or two…"

I turned just in time to see Jared's fist collide with Sam Uley's jaw. He began to blur a second later, shaking so hard that I couldn't make out his form.

I gasped loudly, stopping in my tracks.

Jared's head snapped to me, and he was at my side almost a second later. I gasped again, and then a third time when I was abruptly engulfed in his embrace. Stunned into silence, I tried to gather my thoughts while surrounded my Jared's body and warmth. It was, of course, completely useless.

"_Kim_," he said. He had said my name so many times in the last two days, but never like that – so full of _relief. _My head was spinning.

Behind Jared, Sam Uley cleared his throat loudly. Jared stiffened and loosened his grip on me, even stepping a way a step. Sam looked at me warily.

For the longest time, nobody spoke. The stillness was more deafening than any amount of talking could be.

"Why are you walking?" Jared said finally. "You have a car, don't you? It's freezing…_you_ must be freezing."

"Oh – uh, yeah, my, uh, car – broke down. Just down the road, actually."

Sam turned so that his back was facing me and murmured something in Jared's ear that I couldn't hear, and Jared's face instantly became less emotional. He cleared his throat. Sam walked away.

"I can help you with the car," Jared offered.

"Oh." I pressed my palm to my now-pounding forehead, which seemed to be pounding along to my frantic heartbeat, and nodded somewhat confusedly. "Thanks."

I walked quickly and silently to my car, trying to convince myself that Jared hadn't been talking about me. So yeah, he'd been relieved to see me, but maybe that's just because he's so torn up over this other missing girl. Like his mom, for instance. His sister? Courtney Loquato. Tia Summers. It could be anyone, least of all me, who Jared would _not _worry about so much.

"Do you have a jacket?" Jared asked me when we got to the car.

"Yeah," I said, and reached into the backseat for it. I pulled it over my head, and Jared was already popping open the hood, looking for the source of the problem.

A few seconds later, he gave me a quick report. "Looks like a faulty coil wire to me…but I should have Paul look at it. He's good with this stuff."

"Okay," I said softly.

Jared met my eyes and smiled slightly. "Bet I can push this all the way to your house." His eyes glittered boyishly.

"You couldn't," I said playfully, even though my heart still felt like it was trying to jump out of my chest. How quickly his mood had changed, from furious at Sam to teasing now with me.

Jared made a show of pretended to roll up his sleeves and stretch his arms out, but when it came down to it, he started pushing my car effortlessly down the road. My eyes widened, and I walked next to him.

"Do you need help?" I asked.

"I've got this," he said, his voice completely normal. "So how are you?"

"I'm fine," I said. "But really, Jared – you're going to be sore…"

"I'll be just fine, I promise, Kim," he replied cheerfully. That faded when he asked, "So, uh, where were you? Did you go to a friends house after school or something?"

"No," I said awkwardly. "I drove into Forks. There's this little coffee shop I like to go to."

"Angelique's?" he asked.

I gaped. "You know that place?"

My immature, girly side screamed _soul-mates_!

"Oh yeah. Tia used to drag me there all the time," he said, and then looked like he regretted opening his mouth at al.

My heart fell. Somehow the knowledge that Jared and Tia had gone together, as a couple, to _my place,_ made me feel like shit.

"It's great," I said, all the enthusiasm gone.

I watched quietly as he continued pushing my car all the way up into my driveway, despite the fact that it was steep and uphill. "Is here good?" he said, referring to its spot in front of the garage.

"Um, yeah. That's great," I said, inwardly reprimanding myself for the small amount of adjectives in my internal dictionary.

Jared reached into the front seat and put the car in park.

"Thank you so much," I told him gratefully. "Seriously. I don't know what I would have done."

"It's no problem at all," he said, and then he opened his mouth, but I cut him off.

"I have to go in," I said. "My brother is probably looking for me. So, bye!"

I ran into the house and let out a huge breath, followed by a squeal that I could not repress. It wasn't a happy squeal, really – just a shocked one that I needed to get out. Penelope came into the foyer, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

"Kim, it's the oddest thing. You know what Jared boy from across the street? He came to the door to ask where you were a little earlier. Do you know him?"

I closed my eyes and nodded, heading straight for my room before there were anymore questions.

**A/N: I know nothing about cars. I'm in my twenties and I don't even drive one. After writing this chapter, my boyfriend went on my computer and was like, "Honey? Why did you Google why a car would stop in the middle of the road?" **

**I also know nothing about the geographical landscape of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. **

**So, don't criticize me on my lack of knowledge in those areas. **

**But any other comments/questions/concerns/criticisms/critiques – ANYTHING – is always more than welcome. (:**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: However annoyed you are with me, I swear I'm more annoyed with myself! I'm SO sorry.**

**I'd like to take a moment to thank every single person who has reviewed, alerted, favorited, or even looked at this story! My life has been so hectic lately that I haven't been able to properly express how much you guys mean to me! I really do take into account every single thing you all say to me, and I appreciate it more than you can imagine. I've been a terrible, terrible author lately, letting this story go without updates for MUCH too long. I've promised people to update soon and not followed through, which kills me because I want to give this story the attention it deserves. I'm going to work very hard to fit in time to write new chapters, and with any luck I'll be coming out with longer, quicker and better chapters for you all to enjoy! **

**Special thank you to Danih93, you absolutely brighten my day every time you review! Sorry it's so late, girl! **

**...Gah, this chapter is boring. There's really nothing I can do to pump up the interestingness, it's just a necessary filler.**

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"**Somebody like you can really make things alright for me."**

– _**Requiem for a Dream**_

There was this thing that Chris did, and I don't think he or anyone else realized it.

We'd be out at dinner, the whole family. Normally at this place in Port Angeles we all liked well enough and had yet to give anybody food poisoning. Penelope and a waiter would be wrestling Ethan into a highchair, and Sophie would be demanding two crayon sets (because there were never enough reds for her taste) and Chris would develop a twitch.

I liked to call it his Over-the-Shoulder-Twitch. He only did it when he got really embarrassed or ashamed of something, which was getting more and more often as of late. What he did, every ten seconds or so, he'd routinely look over his shoulder to make sure no one he knew was watching. And I guess they never were, because although he'd always be flushed, he never came right out and said anything. He didn't help Ethan into his chair or supply Sophie with the crayons she desired; he just hoped nobody would witness his downfall.

For some reason, that twitch always made me really depressed. Chris and I might not ever be very close, but I wanted him to be happy, and he wasn't. Sometimes I wondered if he ever would be, with Penelope and Ethan tying him down to La Push and his dead-end job for the rest of his life.

And thinking that made me realize that we were all there, on that same path, headed in that same direction. Most people, especially people from La Push, never left their hometown. They went to the local university, got a decent degree and proceeding to get a decent job and live in the same kind of decent house they'd grown up in. There was no way out, and that was sort of suffocating.

So every time I witnessed the Twitch, I vowed I'd get out of here.

I really would.

* * *

* * *

"I can't begin to tell you how lucky we are you're here," Penelope told me again and again. "Really. We are."

"It's not a big deal," I replied every time. "I'm happy to do it."

I was sitting on her bed, watching as she twirled in a pair of pearl earrings in front of the big mirror attached to her dresser. It was Chris's semi-annual office get-together, which was pretty much the only time Chris and Penny got out of the house alone anymore. It was also an opportunity for Penelope to buy a fancy dress twice a year. This time, she'd purchased a three-hundred dollar emerald green sheath that cascaded down her back gracefully, making her appear taller and bustier than she really was.

"You look beautiful," I told her, because it was one of those things people should hear every once in a while. Chris wasn't one to overuse words, which was ironic because Penny thrived on them, even the insincere ones.

"You think so?" she asked doubtfully, but I could tell she was grateful. She scrutinized her face in the mirror with squinted eyes.

"You're going to be the youngest, hottest wife there," I insisted.

Penelope beamed. She really did. After a few seconds, the expression faded off her face entirely, replaced by a more familiar sheepish look. It was hard to imagine a second ago, she'd been glowing.

"They've already eaten dinner, but I don't want them having any dessert. Sophie wants to ride her bike, but make sure it's not too dark out. Just put Ethan in his bouncy chair and pray he stays entertained for a while."

"Penny, you're going to be late," I said. "And I already know all of this."

"Right. Right." She turned around quickly, making her dress swish around her knees. "How do I look?"

"Gorgeous," I said again, and shooed her out of the room. Chris was waiting in the kitchen, adjusting the cuff of his shirt and checking his watch. When he saw Penny, he gave her a look, and not a nice one either.

Despite all of my mixed feelings for Penny, in that moment I felt worse for her than I ever had. Here she'd been, spending hours to get ready for this party and when someone had finally maybe convinced her she looked great, her husband – the one person in the world who should think she looked amazing – couldn't even muster anything besides an impatient expression.

I looked away clandestinely so I wouldn't have to see Penny's face fall. I stood there while they left, said my goodbyes and wished them a great time. When they were out the door, I let out a deep breath I'd been holding for a while. I glanced from Sophie, glued to the television in the living room, to Ethan, who was crawling around in his playpen.

"Kim?" Sophie said without turning.

I couldn't stand when kids watched TV like that. It killed me.

"Yeah?"

"Where'd they go?" she asked quietly.

In this house, there wasn't much communication. We talked when we had something to say and only made each other aware of the bare minimum amount of information. For Chris and Penny and I, it was a pathetic kind of defense mechanism – it kept us sane, not having to listen to the mundane activities of each others' lives. But throw a kid like Sophie in the mix – someone who loves to talk and listen to anything – and it makes everyone aware of how fucked up the system is.

"To a party," I told her. "Chris's company party."

She nodded slowly and shut down the TV. "Kim?" she said again.

I got that feeling, the one where you can just _tell _important words are about to be spoken. It was in the energy of the room, the anxious anticipation of having absolutely no clue what someone was going to say. I thought maybe it felt like this before Martin Luther King Jr. made his "I Have a Dream" speech, or when the new President of the United States was announced in front of the world. Consciously, I knew that there was no way Sophie, an eight-year-old, could say anything of such importance, but then what did I know? Maybe people say important things every day, every single second, but nobody listens to them because they're not behind a podium or being videotaped. Maybe if I'd been listening, Sophie had been saying them all along.

"Hmm?" I said, watching her closely.

She took a deep breath and tucked a piece of her unruly hair behind her ear. It hadn't been brushed in days; it was sticking up in every direction and badly needed a trim. Mom never would have let it go so long without maintenance, I thought. But then, Mom wouldn't have done a lot of things and I needed to stop thinking that way.

"Can we go outside?"

* * *

* * *

While Sophie was setting up her bike, I went upstairs to get a book. After a few minutes of searching through my bookshelf, I picked out _The Catcher in the Rye, _just like I'd known I would all along. I ran a hand over the wrinkled cover and tucked it into the pocket of my sweatshirt.

Sophie was snapping on her helmet in the garage while an enrapt Ethan watched with wide eyes. He clapped his pudgy hands together when she took off, something he did a lot lately. Babies were interesting. They'd get to doing something, and they'd do it so often for a while that it would become totally normal, and then they'd just stop. Just last week, he'd been obsessed with chanting "wa-ha-wa-ha" every five seconds, but I hadn't heard him say it once in the last four days. The clapping was new, and just like everything else, wouldn't last.

I pulled a beach towel out from a box of Penny's things, shook out the dust and laid it on the cool sidewalk. The snow had melted since yesterday, a mixture of the slightly warmer temperature and twinkling sunlight this morning. It was actually beautiful out; the clouds were white and puffy and didn't seem to be threatening the sun, which seemed unusually huge in the sky.

"Kim!" Sophie called. "Kim! Kim! Look at me!"

She was on her old pink Barbie bike that she was growing too big for, wearing a helmet that crushed her head. But despite all that, she had the biggest grin on her face, her hands up in the air while she navigated with only her legs. The bike was jerking wildly underneath her and although I didn't want to spoil her fun, I was a little freaked out.

"Sophie, use your hands!" I demanded. "You're going to fall!"

Ethan clapped and giggled.

"I'm not going to fall," she insisted, rolling her eyes. "I'm good at this!"

But still, she placed her little hands back on the handlebars, sensing that I was serious. I watched her for a while, zooming down the sidewalk, and I imagined how fast she felt. Really, she wasn't going above a mile an hour, but on a tiny little bike with her hair whipping out behind her, it would feel like flying.

Everything was quiet. Peaceful. Ethan was purposefully examining his surroundings while I read, routinely making sure Sophie was staying off the street. She was, although occasionally I swore I'd see her with her hands tucked behind her back, trying to show off.

After a few minutes of the stillness, Ethan started to clap loudly, demanding my attention. He gurgled and grinned, sticking three fingers in his mouth and making the loudest shrieking sound.

"Jesus, Ethan," I said, smiling. "What's up with you?"

He didn't quiet, though, and I felt compelled to take him out of his chair and rock him a little bit. He really was a cute baby, if you could set aside his pampered attitude and the frequent tantrums he threw.

No matter how much I tried to calm him, he continued making that same squealing sound, which grew louder by the second. It actually became so loud that I had to look up to make sure there wasn't a crowd of neighbors thinking I'd been torturing the kid.

What I saw when I looked up, though, was much more alarming.

From what I knew, Jared didn't come outside often, unless you counted the distance it took to get from the door to his car. He always seemed so busy; coming home, bounding inside, rushing out an hour or so later.

But now he _was _outside – walking toward me, no less – and the striking contrast of his fresh, clean appearance and the gloomy day made my heart speed up. I think Ethan was still making noise, but it didn't seem so loud now.

"Hey, Kim," he greeted me with a sheepish grin. He rubbed the back of his neck, almost nervously, while I settled Ethan back in his crib.

"Oh…hi," I squeaked. Although the only witness was Ethan, who was a bit too mesmerized at the sight of Jared to pay me any mind, I still felt immensely embarrassed.

"I saw you out here. Thought you might want some company."

Before I could say anything, he bent down to sit next to me, his whole arm flexing as he situated himself on the cold ground. He wasn't wearing a jacket, just a plain navy T-shirt and black jeans (which hugged his derrière rather wonderfully, I couldn't help but note).

"Oh, I can get you a chair!" I exclaimed, scrambling to get up.

Jared shook his head and chuckled. "No, really, I'm good. Don't worry about it."

"Are you sure?" I asked him skeptically. I didn't want him to freeze his aforementioned rear end off.

"Yup," he said, stressing the _p _the way little kids do.

I laughed, and the mood was lightened. I don't know what it was, but I didn't feel as disgustingly nervous as I usually did in his presence.

"So, babysitting?" he asked, motioning to Sophie, who was maneuvering her bike in a series of complicated twists and turns, as if she were competing in an uphill triathlon.

"Yeah," I said. "My brother and his wife had a party to go to, so I'm, uh, helping out."

Jared nodded. "So your sister's in, what, fourth grade?"

"Second, actually," I corrected.

Despite the admittedly boring conversation, Jared seemed completely interested in what I had to say. But I'd always known this about him: he was one of those people who, when he was talking to you, gave the impression that the only thing he cared about was what you were saying at that moment. It was one of the many reasons everyone loved him so much – he made people feel special.

"And who's this guy?" he asked, motioning to Ethan with a huge grin.

"My nephew," I offered. "Ethan. He's a spoiled brat, but he's a cutie."

"Most babies are arguably spoiled," Jared chuckled.

"But in this one's case, it's extreme."

Sophie called my name, snagging my attention away, and I made a big deal about the loops she showed me. I guess that's what parenting is like, really. No matter how insignificant something is, you act proud and impressed, because that's a necessity kids need to grow up happily.

When she was done, I turned to Jared. "Isn't Courtney having a party tonight?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Yeah. I guess so."

His nonchalant tone confused me. He acted as though he could care less about the party, although it had been all everyone was talking about today at school, Paul and the rest of his friends included. Courtney had offered me an invitation – she'd invited literally _everyone _– but obviously I was otherwise engaged. Plus, keggers weren't my thing, and this one was set to be a huge one. Apparently some guys from the local college were supplying the booze real cheap, and Courtney's parents were out of town. Those two factors combined equaled a huge blowout.

"She probably wants you to go," I said quietly.

"I don't think she'll miss me," he said offhandedly. "Besides, I want to be here."

When I glanced up to look at him, baffled by his statement, his eyes bore into mine. I finally understood why so many authors described a man's glare as "smoldering" – I felt as if I could melt right into the warm depths.

I _also _felt very sick to my stomach and very in want of a cigarette. I wasn't much of a smoker – in fact I've smoked only three times in my life – but right then I was pretty sure I could have chain-smoked three at a time.

"There isn't much to do here," I said, and much to my endless chagrin, my voice shook a little bit. "You know. Besides watching little kids."

Jared was just about to say something when a wail sounded from down the street. I jumped up so quickly my knees cracked, whipping my head around, locating Sophie, on the ground holding her knee.

"_OW!_" she screamed, and before I even saw her face, I knew how red it would be.

I was at her side in less than a second, bending down on my knees to examine her injury, Jared right behind me. Her jeans had ripped open, a huge hole with frayed denim edges, and it was rapidly soaking through with blood. The whole top layer of her skin seemed to have just disappeared. I'd suffered many scrapes and bruises in my lifetime, but I have to admit, Sophie's pretty much trumped anything I'd ever seen.

"Oh my God," I breathed, heart in throat. "Oh, my God."

"_Owwwww_," she cried, over and over and over again. I didn't know what to say. This wasn't exactly my area of expertise.

Jared knelt down beside me, examining Sophie's knee and then speaking softly, kindly, "Sophie? Sophie, don't worry, you're gonna be just fine. I know it hurts right now, but think about it this way: in about ten minutes, it's barely going to sting."

Sophie looked at him, eyes wide as saucers, and his unexpected presence was enough to ease her sobbing. She kept a steady gasping, and the tears were flowing still, but she was quiet.

"I – I'll go see if we have anything we can wrap it in," I said, thoroughly shaken.

"My friend Emily," Jared said, "Sam's girlfriend. She's training to be a nurse, and she's got all these medical supplies. She'll have some bandages and maybe some antiseptic or something to clean it up with. We should really take her there."

I just looked at him, torn, knowing Penelope wouldn't want us to leave but also aware that Sophie was probably in need of some medical attention so she didn't get an infection. "How far away do they live?" I asked warily.

"Maybe ten minutes on foot," Jared said. "I can take us in my truck, though."

"Yeah…yeah, okay." I watched as he leaned down near Sophie and smiled what was, in my opinion, the most dazzling smile.

"Mind if I pick you up, Shorty? I don't think you should walk on that leg," he said.

It was a testament to Jared's effortless charm that Sophie nodded and even managed a tiny smile. He gathered her up in his arm, again effortlessly, and looked at me, waiting for direction.

"I'll go get Ethan," I said, and dashed off. He was wiggling in his seat, trying to escape, so I buckled him in tighter and held the handle with two hands. Across the street, Jared was already laying Sophie in the back of her truck, laughing at something she'd said.

"I guess they're having fun," I murmured to Ethan, whose only response was a clap. "Now, don't embarrass me by screaming over at this Emily's, okay?"

He screamed.

"Is he okay?" Jared asked as I walked up with the yelping baby.

"Just pray he'll wear himself out before we get there," I said.

Jared smiled and opened up the passenger door for me, proving that chivalry was not dead at all. I settled the baby carrier in my lap and buckled myself in while Jared jogged around to his side of the car. Despite the old truck's age, it started up a lot more smoothly than mine. The purr of the engine was silent and only further propelled my nervousness.

Luckily, Sophie's present situation allowed for a separate conversation in which I didn't have to humiliate myself in front of Jared completely. I asked her if it was still bleeding, and she said yes, and was she going to die?

"You're not going to die," I told her. "I promise."

"I can't feel my leg," she started gasping. "Oh my God, I can't feel my leg!"

"Relax, Sophie," I insisted. "You're freaking yourself out. I promise you that you can feel your leg. Calm down. It's all alright."

I felt like a little bit of a bitch hushing her, but it's something they always do in the movies and I was sort of lacking proper ways in which to comfort.

"Yeah, don't worry, Soph," Jared added. "People skin their knees like this all the time and live to tell about it."

Sophie didn't get to question her mortality for much longer, because soon we were pulling up to a cute little yellow house that sat precariously near a small piece of the ocean. The walkway to the white front door was bordered with an array of flowers, the likes of which most of La Push had never seen – red flowers, white flowers, yellow flowers, purple, green, pink flowers and not a hint of weeds. It was the most loved house I'd ever seen.

I wanted one just like it.

"We're here," Jared announced.

He carried Sophie while I carried Ethan up the stone pathway to the house, bursting in the doorway without knocking.

I opened my mouth, shocked at how comfortably Jared let us into the house. I felt like we were intruding and lingered near the door.

Before Jared could move out of the foyer, a petite woman wiping her hands on a dishrag peeked around the corner. "Oh, Jared!" she exclaimed.

"Hey, Em," he said with a slight smile. "I, uh, could use a hand. Sophie here cut up her knee pretty bad on her bike. I thought maybe you'd know what to do."

Emily stepped completely into the room, and the light poured onto her face, unmasking the scars I'd forgotten she had. Her accident was big news in La Push – a bear attack wasn't common for the locals – and the talk had only died down recently.

Her eyes widened at Jared, who cocked his head backward in my direction. Her beaming gaze connected with mine instantly, and I mustered a tiny, sheepish smile.

"Oh, of course!" Emily said. "You must be Kim, right?" she said to me, and when I nodded, she said, "I'm so excited to meet you. Not under these circumstances, of course, but still."

I returned the pleasantries and then Emily snapped into nurse-mode, instructing Jared to place Sophie on the couch while she went to get some supplies. I sat down next to her, Ethan in my lap. The new surroundings fascinated him enough that he was mostly quiet.

"You can put him down if you want," Jared said, probably noticing how squashed I looked under the huge contraption that was Ethan's carrier.

"Oh," I said. "Right."

I set the carrier down on the floor, not wanting to dent the pretty velvet couch. Then, in a movement so quick it was like lightning, I whipped out Ethan's blanket and tucked it under Sophie's leg at the exact moment the blood would have spilled over on the couch.

I stepped away, feeling a little ninja-like.

Jared noticed my grin and matched it with his own, brighter one.

"This might sting a little bit," Emily warned as she reentered the room, carrying a bag of supplies with her.

Sophie inhaled sharply, and I offered her my hand, which she squeezed so tightly the skin turned white.

"All I'm going to do is wipe this over the cut," said Emily. She took a clear liquid and a pad of a material thicker than tissues and dabbed Sophie's leg. The blood immediately seeped through the pad, and Sophie gasped.

"Are you going to get it to stop bleeding?" she asked, her mouth quivering.

"Of course!" Emily said with a smile. "I'll have you just fine in a few minutes. Jared, go take the cookies out of the oven. Oh, and tell Paul that he left his phone here when you see him next. And look out for Sam." She told him all of this while still tending to Sophie.

Once she was done dabbing, Emily peeled off the back of a huge bandage and placed it over Sophie's knee, finishing with a pat. "You're all done, sweetie," she announced. "I'll give your sister a few more bandages, and just remember to change it tonight, tomorrow morning, and maybe once more."

Sophie nodded, her eyes wide to signal her compliance.

I smiled sheepishly and thanked Emily profusely. "Really. Thank you so much. I don't know what I would have done – " I started.

"Oh, please! It's my pleasure," said Emily.

Jared came back then, sparing me from having to exercise by abysmal small-talk skills. He was carrying a tray of chocolate chip cookies, smirking wryly as he sat them on the table next to Sophie.

"You feeling better?"

Sophie sniffled and let go of my hand. I flexed it immediately, trying to rearrange the bones that seemed to have shifted out of place from my sister's death grip.

Jared's eyes went straight to my hand and then away so quickly I wasn't sure he'd ever looked.

"Oh…thank you – you don't have to – " I tried to say, but Sophie had already stuffed a cookie in her mouth.

"This is so good!" Sophie exclaimed while her mouth was full.

"Sophie, swallow first," I chastised at her softly.

"Sorry," she said, her mouth still full.

I sighed and smiled apologetically at Emily.

"Please, take as many as you want, girls," Emily said graciously. "If you don't, Sam and Paul will get to them, and then we'll have a real problem on our hands."

"Where are they?" Jared asked, stacking up three cookies on top of each other. "They've been out all morning." He looked up and Emily and they seemed to exchange secret words with their eyes.

"Oh, you know," Emily said offhandedly. "I'm sure they just got caught up. You know them. And I asked Sam to go to the store for me."

Jared nodded and became involved with his cookie pyramid.

"We should go," I said, standing up suddenly. I felt like we were intruding. "Thank you so much again, Emily."

Emily smiled, the good side of her face lifting up while the scarred half stayed down. Emily had lucked out in the genetic pool, nature giving her strong cheekbones, dark, heavy-lidded eyes and a curved mouth. But the fickleness of beauty was apparent – in a split second, the attractiveness Emily had surely grown accustomed to throughout her life had been ripped away for her. And yet, I'd never seen someone look so absolutely comfortable in their own skin, as if life couldn't possible have gone any better.

"Come back soon!" Emily said. "Bye, Sophie. I hope your leg feels better."

Sophie smiled shyly. "It does. Thank you, Miss Emily."

Jared stood up to follow us out the door. "Lemme get my keys," he said.

"Oh, no. You don't have to drive us back," I said. "It's a short walk."

Jared looked at me incredulously. "I'll take you," he said again.

There was obviously no point in arguing, so I lifted up Ethan's crib and followed Jared outside. Sophie hobbled a little dramatically behind us both. I reached out to offer her a hand, but she shook her head, preferring to go with the martyr angle.

As we piled into the car and began the way home, I became acutely aware of what could only be flirting on Sophie's part. She'd leaned forward from her backseat and was leaning over the arm rest, giggling as Jared told her about the time he'd broken his leg falling out of a tree.

I leaned my head against the window, smiling.

Us Thames girls just couldn't resist Jared Thail.

* * *

* * *

I dreamed about Jared that night.

It was the first of many times I would stay up worrying about him.

* * *

**A/N: So, there it is! There are probably a lot of mistakes, and besides that, it might have made a few of you fall asleep. I really want to get to the JUST Kim/Jared chapters, but first I feel that I really need to establish a few awkward, learning-about-each-other moments. **

**I would LOVE LOVE LOVE any of your ideas for the next chapter or really any chapter to come! I've got a basic outlined planned for the story, but I always get caught up in the details. **

**Thank you soooooooooo much for reading! **


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: I'm hoping that all of my reviewers got my PM about putting this story on official hiatus a few weeks (months?) back, but I may have missed a few, and if so, I'm extremely sorry! I was going to post a chapter about it being on hiatus, but that always makes me feel like an asshole, and plus I thought it would be more personal to apologize shamelessly through a PM. ANYWAY, that being said, I've found the time to finally complete this chapter! I'll keep you all better posted on when the next one will be, and hopefully soon!_

"**They beat up on a weakling, and that's all they did. The rest is just smoke-filled, coffee-house crap. They tortured and tormented a weaker kid. They didn't like him, so they killed him. And why? Because he couldn't run very fast.****" **

– _**A Few Good Men**_

The year Sophie was born, my mother had become addicted to vanilla- and cinnamon-scented candles. She'd light them all over the house, until it got so bad that every time someone left, they felt like they were coated in a thin sheet of cookies. When I think of the day Sophie was brought home from the hospital, I can't remember what anyone said or how they looked, but I remember it smelled like a bakery.

Smell, they say, is the sense most associated with memory.

I remember my mother by her perfume: a strange mixture of cinnamon and roses that permeated the air around her. And whenever I smell new car or just a tinge of cigar smoke, I think of my father.

I turned over in my bed, where I was scribbling a rough draft for a World History essay, and tried to think of Jared's smell and what it made me remember.

Technically speaking, Jared and I had no real history, and therefore his smell shouldn't bring _anything _to mind, but I'd been obsessing over him long enough to know that there had to be a smell. There had to be.

Jared smelled good, of course. Scent is very important to me, and I probably would have been slightly turned off of my crush if I'd noticed he had persisting B.O. or something. But Jared didn't have just _one _particular scent. Or maybe he did, but it was like no other scent in the world, and could only be described as Jared. He smelled like fresh laundry mixed with trees mixed with lemons mixed with a thousand other things that together make up a smell that could _only_ belong to him.

It was my favorite scent, and it didn't even have a name.

Though at first it seemed that winter was going to gently creep up on us, by Monday a full-on snowstorm had commenced.

I had, over my lifetime, grown accustomed to the winter in La Push; it was predictable. December brought with it light, fluffy snow showers and gray skies, and January was characterized by freezing sleet that eventually dissolved into the usual rain.

Snowstorms were rare, and seldom lasted for more than an hour, but this one didn't appear to plan to let up any time soon.

"It's really coming down," Penelope had said warily that morning as she looked out the kitchen window. "Maybe Chris will drive you girls to school. I'll pick you up."

Normally I would decline, but taking into account my car's shotty record lately, I wasn't about to risk it.

So Sophie, Chris and I piled into Chris's economy car, squeezed together as tightly as possible to retain warmth, each of us pressing our hands to the air vents that were blowing out delightful warm air. We waited five minutes in the car while we defrosted.

The main roads were thankfully plowed, but there was traffic, a virtual alien in La Push. Most of the citizens didn't know how to navigate it, and even Sophie's eyes were wide as if she'd never seen anything quite like this in her life. We were stopped at two stop lights, a crowded intersection and three stop signs before pulling into the elementary school.

Sophie gathered up her school things, a process made difficult due to her bulky snow jacket. Chris mumbled incoherently under his breath until he finally snapped, "Christ, hurry up, Soph. I've got a meeting in fifteen minutes, I don't have time for this."

In less than a second, Sophie's big brown eyes filled with the kind of tears that would break anybody's heart. She ripped her schoolbag out of the backseat and slammed the door with no goodbye.

Chris didn't appear fazed. He sped out of the parking lot and onto the streets, but it was when he turned on the radio that I snapped.

"Did you have to go and say that to her?" I demanded.

Chris looked at me in mild surprise. "What? Sophie? She's fine."

My jaw dropped. "No, she's not fine," I said slowly. "She was about to burst into tears. You know she looks up to you and all you and Penelope ever do is criticize her."

"Sophie is nine-years-old," Chris said through his teeth. "She's old enough to know not to be so sensitive. Things are tough, and we can't baby her all the time."

Now _I _was about to burst into tears. Chris didn't know how to be a parent or even a brother, and here he was implying that our baby sister had a problem for being sensitive. I'd never hated someone as much as I hated him in that moment.

I was completely silent in my seething. I stared straight ahead, the lines of the road converging through my wet eyes. I said nothing as Chris cut off a school bus, and I said nothing as he cussed at the car in front of us for "going too goddamn slow."

I said nothing, in fact, until I had a grip on my backpack and one foot out the door. And then, staring straight at his face – a face I looked at every day but never bothered to memorize – I said, "Sophie's eight-years-old."

And I slammed the door and left.

Jared was absent.

I'm not exactly sure when I started relying on him to me at school for the sake of my sanity, but apparently that was the price of his absence. I spent every moment looking between my work and the door, hopingthat he would actually decide to show up.

As if that wasn't enough of an emotional toll, all anybody could talk about was Courtney's party, which had apparently been amazing, except for the one missing attendee everyone kept mentioning – Jared.

"I thought you said he _would _be there," Ashley Martin, a snobby girl in my first period, told Courtney Loquato. They were sitting at the table next to me, gossiping shamelessly while Mrs. Stick was using the restroom.

"Look, Jared's been ditching everyone lately," Courtney Loquato said. "No one knows where the hell he's been at."

I directed my eyes at my desk, listening intently to everything they were saying.

"Well," Ashley huffed, "it just seems like if you guys were an item like you say, he'd have been there."

Courtney had no response, and I felt a little bad for her, as all she could do was slump back in her chair and shrug.

"He's probably out doing drugs or something," said Tia Summers. This had become her mantra – personally, I thought she just liked to believe that drugs were the only excuse for his dumping her.

"Well, Kim might know," Ashley suggested, her voice only slightly venomous. "He _was _talking to her the day he came back."

They simultaneously turned to look at me, both of their faces expectant. Ashley's expression held the slightest amount of disdain, while Courtney appeared friendly enough.

My face flushed.

"Um," I said, "I don't know why he didn't go to the party."

It was the answer they'd been expecting, so they turned away without another word.

I contemplated telling them that Jared had been with me, but I doubt they'd even believe it.

And besides, there was no need to get my own hopes up – Jared could come back tomorrow and fall back into his old routine, completely forgetting about me. There was no use telling Courtney and Ashley things that could possibly come back to bite me.

Mrs. Stick eventually returned and order was restored for the next thirty minutes.

Lunch, however, was a different story.

I hadn't had time to pack my lunch that morning, and I was actually hungry for once, so I swallowed back my irrational nervousness at stepping foot into the cafeteria and got into line with what appeared to be the rest of the student body. Everyone was huddled with a group of friends, so I lingered near the back of the line pretending to search through my backpack so I wouldn't appear like such a loner.

Everything was fine. No one was paying me any attention and I thought something was finally going well for once.

"Hey, Kim," I heard suddenly.

And then nothing was well.

My stomach muscles all clenched and my heart sped up so fast that I couldn't find my voice to speak. I could barely glance up into his face, which was casually indifferent and making its way closer and closer towards me.

I stumbled backwards and caught myself on a water fountain.

"Come on, Kim," Jeremy said, his voice friendly enough that for a second I wondered if I was just imagining the venom. "Can't I just say hi to an old friend?"

_We're not friends! _I wanted to scream. I wanted to kick and shove and fight and do all the things I should have done all those years ago, but I couldn't get any of my muscles to respond.

Before I could react, Jeremy was in front of me, and all I could think about was how much _bigger _he was than me. I couldn't defend myself against him if I tried.

"So how've you been?" he asked.

"F-fine," I said.

_Please go away please go away please go away. _

"Any new boyfriends?"

How dare he ask me that? Anger built up in my stomach, boiled over to the point of pure rage and I snapped, "No. And you have no right to ask me that."

In a second, his face registered shock and anger. I'd never stood up for myself before, not even close.

"You know, it wasn't all me," he said in a low voice, and he put his arm on my shoulder as he spoke. "You can act like the victim all you want, but we both know you aren't innocent."

"Take your hands off of her!" someone yelled, rushing toward the scene. Through my unfocused eyes, I recognized Ella, pushing through the line of students now staring at me.

"_Don't _touch her," Ella spat, standing firmly in front of Jeremy, efficiently blocking him from my view. "You're a fucking asshole, Jeremy. Why don't you go find some other middle-schooler to take advantage of?"

There was a collective gasp and a chorus of chuckles and "ooh"s as Ella turned her back on him and examined me closely. "C'mon," she said softly. "Let's get you outside." She took my hand and led me out the closest double doors. The second they slammed shut, I let out the breath I'd been holding in.

"Ella…" I began to thank her, but she cut me off.

"Kim, please," she said with a wave of her hand. "We may have grown apart, but no one gets to talk to someone I care about that way."

Then I began to apologize, but she brushed that off too.

"You had a lot going on," she said wryly.

"Yeah," I agreed with a small laugh.

I glanced around myself: we were under an overhang in front of the back entrance to the cafeteria, overlooking the student parking lot. It was still snowing, the white fluff coming down rapidly and turning to mush almost the second it hit the ground.

"This is why I stay in the library during lunch," I said, mostly as a joke.

"So _that's _where you go," Ella exclaimed. "I've always wondered where you disappear to for an hour."

"Yeah," I said. "I just find talking to Mr. Stark preferable to scenes like the one in there."

"What did Jeremy say to you?" she asked quietly. She met my eyes with her huge brown ones, and I felt a rush of anxiety as I tried to come up with a reasonable lie.

"Just some stuff about what happened a while ago…" I told her vaguely, looking at my shoes.

"What _did _happen, back then?" she asked.

"I – I – I – "

"I always meant to ask you, you know," Ella said. "I was going to wait a few weeks until I thought you were ready. But then…the accidents…I don't know. It just didn't seem as important anymore."

"It wasn't," I agreed. Ironically enough, if it hadn't been for the accidents, I'd probably be even more scarred by what Jeremy had done – as it was, I'd never had enough time to dwell on it.

Ella must have suspected I was going to get emotional, because suddenly she wrapped her arms around me and I started to cry because it had been _so long _since someone had hugged me that way that I forgot how absolutely wonderful it felt.

After a few long moments, I began to pull away, wiping my arms on my sleeves and sniffling. "I'm sorry, I'm a mess."

Ella didn't reply. She was looking at something over my shoulder, and then back at me, trying to communicate something with her eyes.

"What?" I mouthed, but she just shook her head.

"Kim?" The deep, gruff voice made me jump slightly.

Of course.

Jared.

I turned around slowly, praying that my eyes weren't as puffy as they felt. I plastered a big, fake smile on my mouth and said, "Oh, hey, Jared. Where have you been?"

Jared's eyebrows furrowed, and he was suddenly directly in front of me, one hand wrapped around each of my arms. "Oh, God. Kim, what's wrong? What happened? Did – "

"I'm fine," I squeaked. I was unable to think of a proper excuse, so concentrated was I on the way his fingers gripped my upper arm so firmly.

"No you're not," he countered. "You've been crying." He said it quietly, as if he were telling me a deep, dark secret.

"No, really, I'm okay," I insisted. I glanced at Ella, who was watching the exchange with wide eyes.

"Who did it?" he demanded, first of me, and then turning and asking the same of Ella.

Ella obviously wasn't expecting his question. "Kim just had a talk with Jeremy Pipkins, that's all," she said, and quickly tacked on, "But it was nothing. She's fine now."

Jared's eyes shot to my face. His nostrils flared and I felt a ripple of unease rush through my body. "What did he say to you?" he muttered.

"Hey, Jared, man," Paul said, coming up behind him and putting a hand on his shoulder. "Calm down."

I hadn't even noticed Paul there, and I threw him an alarmed look, but he just smiled tensely.

"What did he say?" he asked again. "Did he upset you?"

"He just…said some hurtful things," I mumbled to a spot on his shirt.

Jared's eyes darted all over my face for a few seconds before he snapped to attention and let go of me, making me sway slightly; I hadn't realized how much weight he'd been supporting. I thought for a second he was going to make a run for it, but then he threw open the door to the cafeteria with an almighty bang.

"Oh, shit," Paul said, running in after him.

"What's he…" Ella began and trailed off. She looked at me. "We should go in."

I nodded shakily and followed after her. Everyone already had their attention turned to the front of the line, where Jared was approaching to Jeremy. I'd never seen him look as angry as he did when he opened his mouth and told Jeremy something I couldn't discern. Jeremy appeared to be slightly taken aback, and I saw him say a short sentence, and that's when Jared Thail went nuts.

He shoved Jeremy into the wall and had him pinned up in a second; Jeremy struggled but couldn't free himself.

"If you _ever_ say another word to Kim again, I will personally beat the shit out of you," he growled right into Jeremy's face. "And if I _ever _see her even the slightest bit upset over something you've done, I will kill you."

Although the words weren't loud, they were bone-chillingly clear.

Jeremy laughed, but the sound was a bit hysterical. "She's nothing but a slut, man. Why are you wasting your time?"

Jared roared, literally _roared, _and punched Jeremy with such force that Jeremy crumbled to the ground. He stood over him, ready to attack, but Paul had grabbed both of his arms and had them tightly behind his back. Jared was struggling, but he was shaking too hard to fight through Paul's grip.

"Oh my God," Ella breathed. "Kim, don't…"

But I was already rushing to Jared's side, doing my best to ignore the stares of everyone as I reached the center of the conflict. I instinctively put a hand on Jared's forearm and whispered his name.

He snapped his head to me, his eyes blacks and hard, and I recoiled. I removed my arm and took two visible steps backward, stumbling slightly. Paul extended an arm to help me catch my balance.

Jared's expression softened immediately, and he lifted both of his hands in front of him slowly, as if to convince me he meant no harm. His eyes looked pained, but he didn't move a muscle.

I sucked in a breath. I wasn't afraid of Jared, but I was suddenly aware of everyone's gazes directed at me, and I flushed under the unusual attention. I didn't want this. I didn't want any of this.

Before I could really get my brain to correspond to the situation, my muscle reflexes kicked in and I rushed off in the other direction. I pushed through the crowd, my hand covering my quivering mouth, reluctant to show vulnerability but also not entirely in check of my emotions yet. Someone held open the door for me, and I could have wept. I was so pathetic.

The only place I could think to go was the library, where I should have been all along. But Mr. Stark would stare at my with his judgey eyes, and he would say, _Kimmy, you can't trust any of those boys, as tempting as it seems, _and I would burst into tears because I _wanted _to trust Jared.

I thought that I could be okay, maybe. With Jared as my friend, I could be…okay. Happiness was so far out of my reach that it seemed useless to wish for that, and I'd been unhappy for so long that I knew I could live with it.

So I stopped outside of the library, my hand resting on the cool door handle, and I'd never felt so completely alone. Instead of going inside, I sat on the bench outside of the door and worked on not crying.

Paul Walker knew just by looking at his best friend that he wouldn't be able to console him, but he took him into the bathroom anyway. It took all of his might to wrestle Jared, who was objectively a more tactile fighter but out of his mind with anger, out of the cafeteria and away from Jeremy Pipkins.

When Sam found out, Paul better get a night off.

He'd never seen Jared this way; usually Paul was the one to lose his head, but then, Jared had been losing it with relative consistency for the past few days. It was a little ironic that Jared, arguably the biggest lady's man in the school, had imprinted on little Kim Thames, the quietest girl of their acquaintance, who had also had a pretty big crush on Jared for the better part of their entire lives. Even Paul wasn't masculine enough to be blind to the romantic justice of it all.

"Jesus _Christ_!" Paul said in shock as Jared delivered a wicked shove to one of the sinks lined up against the wall of the men's room; the sink groaned as it was dislodged from the wall. "Jared, man, calm down before you break the school."

"_Fuck_!" Jared screamed, aiming a fist into the wall, but not with enough force to make a hole. "She's fucking afraid of me. I've ruined my chances, she's not going to want anything to do with me and I can't blame her – "

Paul let him ramble on for a while before Jared finally fell silent and slunk to the floor.

He was a broken man.

Paul had to laugh, not that the situation was exactly funny, but because he was fairly sure that it could be resolved in five minutes if Jared wasn't so paranoid.

"I don't think Kim's afraid of you," Paul offered. "She's just, you know, she's confused."

"Well I don't want to confuse her," Jared said. "And I don't want to make her uncomfortable or scared. And that's all I ever seem to do. God, why can't I make her _happy?_ That's my only job, to make her happy, and I can't even do it right."

Paul didn't know what to say. Jared was right, but it wasn't his fault; Kim had been sad for a long time before he imprinted on her. It would take time and effort to make her happy, really happy, and it wouldn't be easy.

"Do you want me to talk to her?" Paul asked hesitantly. "I could just ask her how she is, if she's okay…"

Jared agreed almost immediately. He got to his feet as if he had no energy left in his body, and warned wearily, "Don't bring up Jeremy unless she does. It might upset her, and don't – "

"Dude," Paul interrupted. "I'm just going to say hi. You don't need to write me a script."

Jared nodded swiftly, his expression blank. Paul imagined it wasn't fun to have to rely on someone else to cheer up your imprint. But desperate time called for desperate measures.

"Stay here," Paul said, but he didn't bother to put real meaning behind it, because they both knew Jared would be watching.

Kim wasn't too far from the bathroom, so Paul located her quickly. He thought she looked like the smallest person in the world, sitting cross-legged on a bench outside the library, her arms tucked inside her jacket.

She looked up and met his gaze with her sad doe eyes and without a word, he sat beside her. They stayed there for a few minutes in companionable silence, both of them either not willing or too nervous to break the silence.

Finally, Kim spoke.

"Do you remember my ninth birthday party?"

Paul stifled a shocked laugh. "Um…no, I can't say that I do."

"Oh." Kim wasn't surprised. "My mom organized this really big party. There was a bounce house. Everyone was invited. You and Jared were there, and Courtney Loquato and Tia and Jeremy and Ella and everyone else – "

"I remember." And he did. Vaguely.

"I mean, you know how parents are," she went on. "They don't care about the kids. They just invite the parents they want to hang out with."

Paul nodded.

"And so we were all in the bounce house, like thirty of us, and Courtney said we should play spin the bottle and even though I didn't want to, I agreed because I didn't want to be a baby." Kim took a deep breath and continued faster than before. "And I did something so stupid. I told Jared that I didn't want him to kiss anyone other than me, because it was my birthday, and he promised he wouldn't. It wasn't psycho back then. We were kids."

"Did he?" Paul remembered the bounce house, but the details were blurry, almost as if his eleven-year-old self had gotten really drunk.

"He kissed Courtney Loquato two times and I spent the whole night crying," she said matter-of-factly.

"Oh."

Paul could practically feel Jared's insides being ripped out and stomped on repeatedly as he listened. Even his own insides turned a little guiltily. Poor nine-year-old Kim. It had been her birthday, after all.

"What does Jared want with me?" Kim asked and for the first time her voice wavered. "Why is he talking to me now? I can't stand to be messed with, Paul. I won't be able to stand it."

"He isn't – "

"I know that you're his best friend, but you've always been nice to me, and maybe we'll never be friends or anything, but you have to tell me why," Kim pleaded. "I'll go crazy."

Paul decided bluntness was the only option. "He likes you a lot, Kim. He wouldn't hurt you. He's not that kind of guy."

"Well, I can't be involved with anyone right now," Kim said after a skeptical hesitation.

"Sure you can."

"I can't," she shot back.

"Why not?" Paul argued.

"I'm bad at relationships."

"You wouldn't know," he countered. "You haven't been in a relationship in a long time."

It was the closest he'd come to bringing up Jeremy, and Kim seemed to sense that it was a subject that wasn't meant to be breached.

"Jeremy and I weren't in a relationship," she said anyway. "Not even close."

Instead of pushing, Paul decided to make an attempt at humor. "Even more reason to try a relationship. Who knows, maybe it could be your thing."

She just rolled her eyes.

"Tell Jared that I'm not interested. I don't need to set myself up to get hurt."

"He won't take no for an answer," Paul warned.

"I want to be left alone," Kim said. "That's all. I'm sure he can respect that."

The bell rang then, and they both hesitated, deciding the next move. Paul rose to his feet and handed Kim her bag, at which point a stare-off ensued.

"I'll see you around, Kim," he said flippantly.

Kim just shrugged, finally blinking and turning away in the other direction.

When Paul looked for Jared where he knew he'd been hiding, Jared was gone.

_A/N: I was a little unsure about this ending. I really want Kim and Jared to be together already, but I guess this kind of worked in my head. It made sense. Next chapter, there will be a continuation of this drama (Jared will probably confront Kim, etc.) and probably – probably! – their first kiss. PLEASE let me know what you think, reviews are what keep me going and feel free to leave any suggestions, comments, concerns or criticisms you have!_


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: So I've been getting some questions lately about the beginning of my chapters – either people like them or they don't really understand what relevance they have to the rest of the story. The truth is, they don't really have a "relevance", per say. They're just a tool I use so that my readers can begin to understand Kim and the decisions she makes. I hope that you like them! _

_I won't bother giving you all excuses about where I've been, because either way it's completely unacceptable and I'm so so so sorry…but I'm back now, and should be for a long while!_

_Also: the last portion of this chapter is in Jared's POV, although that becomes pretty obvious as you read on. _

* * *

"**When two people love each other, they come together - WHAM - like two taxis on Broadway."**

– _**Rear Window**_

Dr. Meadow's office was cold.

So cold that you had to wonder if she and all of her secretaries and assistants had somehow overlooked the fact that it was thirty degrees and snowing outside. So cold that I left my jacket on even after she told me to "make myself comfortable." So cold that I was beginning to lose the feeling in my left foot.

"So," she began, unfazed by the chill. "How has your week been, Kim?"

As if I could focus on my week when my body was beginning the transformation into a full-blown icicle.

"Um, it was alright," I told her. "Pretty uneventful."

I felt very uncomfortable talking to her about Jared, because I'd never talked to anyone about Jared, and maybe we hadn't reached the Trusted Confidant stage of our doctor-patient relationship. I had a hard time imagining being able to open up to Dr. Meadows, who seemed to have her life in perfect order, when I was so royally messed up at the moment.

Also I felt uncomfortable because it was _cold. _

"Do you think that maybe you could turn the heat on or something?" I finally asked. The triumph glowed in my heart.

"Oh, certainly," Dr. Meadows said, like she'd just realized that she was currently in an arctic environment. "Sorry. My last patient wanted it to be cold, and I find that people are more open if you let them have their way. Feel free to adjust the thermostat any time you like."

I practically ran for the thermostat next to the door and turned the heat on high, shivering in anticipation of the defrosting that would soon take place.

"Much better," Dr. Meadows said offhandedly. "Now, anyway, is there anything in particular you'd like to talk about?"

"No." I was officially the worst patient ever. "Not really, no."

"Any boys in your life?"

"No," I blurted out, perhaps a little too quickly, my face beginning to flush. A natural reaction to the warm air blowing out of the vents, obviously.

If Dr. Meadows noticed – and I'm pretty certain she did – she didn't give any indication of it.

"What about drugs? I know a lot of those go around high schools these days. Have you ever tried any?"

I got the feeling that she was compiling a file on me, but answered truthfully anyway, hoping that doctor-patient confidentiality thing wasn't a myth. "Sure, there are. I've smoked before, after…well, after the accidents, but it never became a habit. It's something to do with my hands occasionally."

"And drinking, too, I suppose?"

I smiled like it was very funny to me. "I don't enjoy drinking."

"But you do it anyway?"

I stared at her desk, trying to get a glimpse into the type of person she was outside of work. It was relatively devoid of any personal memorabilia, but there was one picture frame, tilted in her direction so that she could see it easily, but so that I could too. All that it featured was she and two other girls, arms wrapped around each other, grinning at the cameras like they were having the best time of their lives. They weren't holding cups, but it was obviously taken at a club, maybe in Seattle.

"Who are they?" I asked, motioning with one arm to the photo.

She smiled warmly. "My sister and my best friend. That was at my bachelorette party."

I hadn't known she was married, but I didn't comment on it. She was probably forbidden to discuss the details of her life, and I wasn't too curious anyway.

"Have you ever gotten really, completely shitfaced, all by yourself?" I asked her bluntly.

I would have assumed she hadn't heard me at first, but then her mouth curved downward and she told me, "No. I don't think I have."

"It's the loneliest feeling in the entire world," I informed her matter-of-factly. "And I've known a lot of lonely feelings. But the worst, hands-down, is sitting at home alone on a Saturday night and drinking a whole bottle of wine and some beers and then passing out in your bed."

I paused and frowned. "Well, maybe the worst part is waking up the next day, still completely alone, with the most massive hangover. Yeah, that's pretty bad."

Dr. Meadows nodded understandably. "But really, is it so much more fun to get drunk with other people?"

I didn't know.

* * *

Later on I would come to realize that Dr. Meadows question acted as something of a catalyst. But the blame couldn't be laid at her door; more at my subconscious's for being such a dumbass.

Ella called me on Thursday, somewhat out of the blue, inviting me to a party at her cousin's house Friday. Theo, the cousin in question, was a reasonably popular and generally nice senior who was good friends with Jared. It was supposed to be a real high school party, equipped with alcohol of course, but, as Ella assured me, "it wouldn't get out of hand."

I hadn't seen Jared for a few days – he hadn't been at school. When I dared to take a peek, the lights in his room were off, but his car was in the driveway. I thought about asking Paul the reason for his absence, but decided that might be awkward. Besides, Paul had spent the whole week giving me a pity-meets-curious type of stare, which was eating me up inside.

"Okay, I'll go," I said. "What should I wear?"

"Something hot," was all she gave me. "Maybe you can find a new boy."

I smirked. "Maybe."

Anyway, there was no school on Friday for something dumb, like a teacher work day, so I spent most of the day lazing around my room with Sophie; I painted her nails a sparkly pink and we watched silly movies. When it was finally nine, I pulled on my nicest jeans and a tight black sweater and straightened my hair into a nice, shiny ponytail. I put on a little bit of eye makeup and a dab of lip-gloss and shrugged in the mirror.

I planned on getting pissed, so appearance didn't much matter.

Ella picked me up, as we'd arranged, and I told Sophie goodbye and left through the garage so I wouldn't have to face Chris and Penelope.

"You look great!" Ella exclaimed in a typical over-exaggerated fashion.

"You too!" I said in the same way.

We were such girls sometimes.

Theo lived on the other side of the Rez, a good fifteen-minute drive from my house. These were the newer, suburban neighborhoods with rows and rows of architecturally-similar structures. The middle class tended to live on this end, while the very poor and very rich tended to occupy mine. If Chris hadn't been so against the prospect of suburbs, we'd probably be living in this area.

The party was already started when we drove up, all the lights on and a steady stream of teenagers making their way in and out the doors. Some looked drunk already, and I envied them, because the only thing I was looking forward to was getting wasted enough to forget this whole time.

"Do you think Jared will be here?" Ella asked as we entered, a little loudly over the music.

I blushed, but nobody seemed to hear her. "Well he hasn't been at school for a while, so maybe he's sick," I barely whispered back.

Ella shrugged and latched onto my wrist, leading me around the entranceway where a huge group had gathered, into the kitchen.

There was mostly beer and a few bottles of expensive-looking liquor. I opted for the beer and popped open a can, swigging it down in nearly a minute.

"Whoa, slow down," Ella said, eyeing me oddly. "You don't want to get totally wasted before it's midnight."

"Yes I do," I gasped, still processing the drink.

I let Ella lead me around the house, occasionally stopping to make small talk with someone from one of my classes. I made sure to get a new beer before the last one was finished and lost track at four, while I was talking to Travis from English.

"Jeez Kim," he said. "I didn't know you were such a lightweight."

I laughed like he'd said something really funny and thought it was a damn shame that Travis had such bad acne. He was an okay guy.

"You're an okay guy," I told him, because he was. An okay guy.

Obviously, to an outsider, this would appear as flirting, when in reality I had no idea what I was doing. I was pretty sure on the flirting scale, I ranked a solid one on a good day.

Ella eventually claimed me again, forcing me to chat with Courtney Loquato, the absolute last person I would choose to share my drunken moments with.

"Hey Kim!" she said, embracing me in a huge, sloppy hug, letting me know she was as drunk as I was.

I opened another beer and gave a brittle-feeling smile.

"Have you seen Jared lately? What's his deal anyway? Are you two, like, dating? You can tell me! You can totally tell me!"

"We're not dating," I slurred. "I don't know…what his deal is…"

That's when things started to get really fuzzy. I stumbled backward, only to be caught by a pair of strong, warm arms. I tried desperately to turn around, but they had such a firm grip on me that all I could do was writhe pointlessly.

"Alright Kim," said the authoritative voice, "that's enough."

I choked on my own spit in relief. "Hi, Paul!" I said gleefully, because if Jared saw me like this…oh, I would _die. _

"Come on," Paul said. "Come outside."

"Hey! Don't push her," Ella said. "I'll bring her home."

Paul gave her a scathing glance. "I've got her from here. Call someone to take you home, Ella. You're drunk too."

Ella looked at me for the okay, the international girl signal for, "Leave me with this guy, it's alright." I wasn't exactly sure how to do that, so I waved to her and said, "It's s'okay."

It took very little of Paul's effort to drag me outside into the frigid air. I could tell he was annoyed, and maybe a little worried too.

"Kim, do you have any idea what Jared's going to do when he sees you like this?"

"What?" I cried. "No, Paul, don't call Jared! Take me home yourself!"

"So you can what, choke on your own puke? You need someone to take care of you. How many drinks have you had, anyway?"

"That's none of your business," I huffed with all the dignity I had left.

"I watched you for the entire twenty minutes I was here, and I saw you down three," he lamented.

"It isn't your job to _protect _me, Paul!" I insisted, staggering away from him.

"No," he muttered, "but it's Jared's. And I just texted him."

My senses were working much slower than usual, but I would have sworn to god that Paul pulled out his phone and put it back in his pocket in less than five seconds. But then I might have been hallucinating by that point.

"Why did you do that? Get me out of here, Paul! I don't want Jared to see me! I'm disgusting!"

I ranted on for a few more minutes. Paul silently took it all, making sure I didn't wander into the forest or do anything too nuts. After a bit, he said simply, "Jared's here."

I paused in my rant and groaned. Jared emerged from the forest like a true mountain man – wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, his hair as messy as could be. I took a deep breath and tried not to puke.

As he walked towards me, he glanced at Paul pointedly, who nodded and ducked away. I watched as Paul jogged down the road, leaving me with my nightmare.

"Kim," Jared said in an indecipherable tone.

"You don't have to be here, Jared," I told him. My voice felt very far away. "Please go away."

I expected him to flash me his puppy dog look like he normally did when he was rejected something, but instead he marched forward, placing a hand on each of my shoulders, his fingers digging in firmly without hurting.

"_What the fuck are you thinking?" _ he snapped at me in a low, dangerous tone. "You can't just – what do you think you're – you're not _allowed _to just – "

I scoffed audibly, shoving his arms off of me. "Who are _you _to tell me what I'm _allowed _to do?"

That seemed to resonate with him, and he slowly gained control of himself. He took a step backwards, not breaking eye contact, and said gently, "At least let me take you home."

"I can't go home," I said miserably. "My sister-in-law will hear me come in and check on me and flip her shit at how wasted I am. She'll send me away to Arkansas!"

"Who lives in Arkansas?" Jared asked.

"Nobody, nobody lives in Arkansas!" I yelled. I really was wasted.

Suddenly I felt a sob rise in my throat and let it out in a shallow gasp. I pressed my palms to my temples and tried to imagine myself somewhere else, anywhere else, but in front of Jared Thail about to burst into loud and theatric tears.

"Kim, no, it's okay, don't…" Jared took a cautious step forward, testing me for any resistance. When I didn't give any, he carefully wrapped his arms around me, holding me so snugly I thought I would die.

"Shit, don't cry," he begged, running a hand in soothing circles over my back.

It was an unbelievably intimate embrace, and had I been slightly more sober I'm sure I would have expired on the spot. Instead I let Jared hold me while I struggled to contain my emotions, feeling a shame that could only be likened to that of a five-year-old who tears up after scraping his knee in front of a group of friends. I didn't want Jared to witness my emotional unraveling, and yet I didn't see how I could survive without his firm, steady grip.

We stood like that for a long time, and eventually it was me who stepped away, even though that was the last thing I wanted to do. I sniffled and wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my jacket.

"It could be worse, you know," I said. "I could be a mean drunk."

Jared smiled at my pathetic attempt at humor, but his eyes still looked troubled. "Are you okay, Kim? Really?"

I laughed a wet laugh because _no, no I wasn't okay god damn it. _I hadn't been okay in years and it wasn't okay for him to ask me that. It wasn't okay for him to comfort me when he was the reason I was crying. It wasn't okay for him to come into my life without an explanation, and it wouldn't be okay when he left without an explanation again.

I thought all of these things but said none of them, instead nodding without meeting his gaze. "Yeah, I'm okay. But could you please take me to Ella? I can't go home tonight. I don't want them to see me."

Jared paused for a very long second and blurted out, "Come to my house."

I gave him a wide-eyed, alert glance. "What?"

"My house," he said. "Nobody's home, anyway. My parents are out of town and Bri is at her friend's. You can take a shower and catch some sleep."

I hesitated. I didn't want to go to Ella's house, and I didn't even know if I'd be welcome there. And Jared was offering me a warm bed and his company, both of which were sounding more and more appealing.

"Okay. I guess if that's okay I could…"

"Of course it's okay," Jared said quickly. I got the feeling he was afraid I'd change my mind.

I took a step toward the sidewalk and stumbled slightly. Jared wrapped a steady arm around my waist and carried most (or all; I couldn't really tell) of my weight while we made our way to a gray car I knew wasn't his.

He held open the door for me and I stared dubiously inside.

"Whose car is this?" I asked.

"Paul's," Jared informed me. "He won't mind if we take it."

"How will he get home?" I asked hesitantly.

"I'm sure he can get a friend to take him," Jared shrugged.

Nodding, I slipped into the car, taking a look around at the comfortable, black leather interior and the shiny wooden dashboard. It was surprisingly clean, devoid of any food packaging, and smelled like new car.

"You wouldn't think it, but Paul's kind of a neat freak," Jared told me. "He won't let anyone eat in here."

I snorted in a very unladylike way, and Jared laughed.

We were silent for the rest of the ride. I tried to compile my thoughts into something understandable, but it proved harder than usual, so instead I concentrated on not puking in Paul's nice car.

I didn't puke often – in fact, the last time I puked was over two years ago. I was a lightweight only because I got drunk fast –I could hold my liquor.

Still, the urge to vomit was pretty strong, if only to get the gross alcohol out of my system for good.

When we pulled up to Jared's house, I was anxious to get inside before anybody from my house happened to see me when I was supposed to be spending the night at Ella's.

Jared unlocked the door swiftly, letting me inside. I'd never seen the interior of his house before – though our mother's had been friendly, they had always seemed to congregate at Paul's house. It was extremely clean and tidy, but there was an undeniable homey air about the place. The warm beige walls with pictures hanging on them, worn leather sofa with several maroon throw pillows haphazardly placed on it, and plenty of photos made the entrance room that led to the kitchen seem like a place a family lived. It was so unlike Chris and Penelope's house that I could have cried.

The place was huge, too, with high ceilings and so many windows that during the day, it would have been completely awash with natural light. Jared led me up a staircase into a hallway that had four doors.

"My sisters and I have rooms up here, and my parents have theirs downstairs," he explained while I examined a row on photos along the wall.

Jared had three sisters – Victoria, Rhea, and Bri, all so beautiful and friendly that there was no choice but to envy them. Victoria was married and lived not too far away with a family of her own, Rhea went to college somewhere in Oregon, and Bri was an eighth grader at the local middle school.

Wryly, I recalled that that was why so many girls adored Jared – with three sisters growing up, who _wouldn't _be a gentleman?

As I made my way along the wall, one of the framed pictures caught my eye, and inwardly I moaned at the sight of Jared and Tia at last year's homecoming, her in a magnificent red dress and him in a black suit and matching tie. I remembered this picture from the yearbook. They'd been voted Homecoming Prince and Princess – an honorary title awarded to juniors who couldn't run for King and Queen yet.

"My mom, uh…" Jared rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, probably seeing what I was looking at. "She…we…well, she's crazy about pictures. I should probably take that one down."

I looked up at him and smiled sadly. "I used to be so jealous of that dress."

I was purposely being bold to make Jared uncomfortable, enjoying the way his cheeks colored and he stuttered like he was trying to get himself out of a bind.

"Can I maybe take a shower?" I asked even while he continued to blush. I was too exhausted and drunk to care that this might be considered rude. "I feel disgusting."

"Sure," he said at once, retreating to a large bathroom near a girl's room and coming out with a fresh green towel. "You can take one in there. Do you want to borrow some pajamas? I'm sure Bri's would fit you."

The prospect of changing out of my sticky jeans and sweaty sweater was too promising to resist – I nodded reluctantly and accepted the flannel pants and T-shirt he offered.

"Thank you," I told him sincerely, and stumbled my way into the cool, blue-tiled room while he watched me carefully. I met his gaze as I began to close the door.

"It's okay, you know," I told him. "The not noticing me thing. It's not like I blame you. You had a lot of pretty girls keeping your attention."

His face went blank, and before he could compose it and think of a reply, I snapped the door shut and fell back against it, letting out a long sigh. Forgetting that I wasn't religious, I thanked the good lord in heaven for this drunken courage, praying that by morning I would forget everything I'd ever said to Jared Thail.

I took a very quick shower, using some delicious-smelling orange shampoo and soap. The citrusy smell, along with the high pressure, burning hot water woke me up like a double-shot espresso. My head slowly began to clear, and by the time I finished I didn't feel nearly as drunk as before. This was more of a comfortably tipsy feeling. Like nothing could go wrong. Like nothing mattered.

I avoided looking in the mirror while I changed, afraid I'd be forced to lock myself in the bathroom forever after witnessing my own appearance. The flannel jeans and T-shirt were comfortably baggy, perfect for sleeping in, but not so perfect for looking sexy in. Of course, after seeing my drunken performance at the party, I'm sure Jared could never think of me that way.

Groaning, I pushed open the door, hoping I could just crash on the couch for the night without bothering Jared any longer. I could only imagine he was beyond annoyed with me.

As the door swung open, though, I found myself face-to-face with a navy blue wall that, upon further examination, I discovered to be Jared's chest.

Letting out an audible gasp, my hand flew to my throat in surprise and before I could say anything, Jared's hands were at my waist, and his mouth was covering mine, and there was no more speaking, no more thinking, only raw instinct that guided me into the kiss.

Of their own accord, my hands tangled themselves in Jared's hair, trying to drag his face down to my level. As it was, I was on my tiptoes with my head tipped completely upward. Jared's arms gripped tighter at my waist, pulling me toward him, until our bodies were almost flat against each other. I could feel my heartbeat resonating on his hard chest.

It was impossible to tell how much time passed – a minute or an hour or an entire day – while I stood there kissing the only boy I'd ever wanted to kiss. Jared's mouth eventually turned gentle, less demanding, and he lifted me clear off the ground. I would never be sure if I was mimicking what I'd seen in movies, or if I was going on pure instinct, but I wrapped my legs around Jared's waist tightly, enjoying the sensation of being held so securely. Jared groaned and began to lead me into his room clumsily, his mouth dragging along my neck and cheeks.

It was hard to imagine that the rest of the world went on while we kissed, that the world didn't tip off its axis and throw everything off balance. There were people in airports, in hospitals, at the mall. People falling in love and people falling out of love. Babies being born. People dying.

But at the moment, I didn't care about any of that. There was only Jared and I and this room, with its dark walls and dim lighting and irresistible smell. Jared placed me on his bed – a wonderfully comfortable queen-sized bed with gray sheets and a navy blue comforter – and kissed me and kissed me and kissed me.

"Is this okay?" he asked at odd intervals, pausing to look at me with drowsy eyes. Each time, I contemplated saying no, if only to catch a glimpse of his reaction. But instead I nodded and drew his head back down to mine.

There was so much mingled in his expression when he looked at me – lust, hesitance and admiration and something else that I couldn't pinpoint – but then I thought that he was probably just tired. I was overanalyzing.

I wondered if this made me a slut, if this was what Jared wanted from me – maybe, in some unthinkable twist of fate, he found himself magically attracted to my plain looks, and he wanted to become fuck buddies. Having never had a fuck buddy before, I wasn't aware of the protocol for a situation like this.

Deep down, I knew I would never allow myself to have that kind of relationship with him. As much as I wished I could be like Courtney Loquato, I could never be so cool, so detached. I had loved Jared for too long – I could only get hurt.

Still, I let myself enjoy his attentions now, knowing that I would remember this night forever. And I deserved it. I deserved this night of pleasure, even if I would regret it in the morning (and I knew myself well enough to know that I would).

My hands crept under his shirt and I ran them over his hard stomach, marveling at the hard contours of his chest and torso. He shuddered when I touched him, and the tips of my fingers burned like they held magic powers. Eventually I pulled his shirt away, but when I got to the buckle of his pants, he gasped, pulling back.

"No, wait, wait, Kim…" he said, struggling for breath, and I pushed myself away from him.

"What?" I asked. "You don't want to…?"

"No, I – I _do _– but do _you_? You're drunk. You don't even like me and I won't take advantage of you like this," he explained hurriedly.

That was enough to make me straighten up and blush furiously. I adjusted my shirt with all the pride I could muster and said meekly, "You're right, of course we shouldn't do that. That was stupid. I'm sorry."

Jared looked like he wanted to laugh, though I didn't see anything remotely funny about the situation.

"Is there a couch I can sleep on? Or if you'll lend me a few pillows, I can crash on the floor."

Immediately his smile faded. "I wouldn't make you sleep on the floor," he said, sounding offended. "You take the bed, and I'll take the floor."

I tried to object, but he obviously wasn't budging.

That night I fell asleep with my head buried in a pillow that smelled like him.

* * *

If there had been any doubt in my mind about the perfection of my imprint, it was permanently expelled from my mind as soon as my lips met hers.

I'd known before that Kim was the most beautiful person on the planet, with her perpetually curved, inviting lips and wide eyes, and her soft, flowing body, but nothing could have prepared me for the feeling of pure bliss that being able to touch her freely gave me. It was like every move she made was perfectly choreographed to drive me crazy, and after the first minute, I began to wonder how I could ever go back to my normal life. How could I look at her in English class and not remember how perfect kissing her was? How could I patrol and concentrate on tracking bloodsuckers when I could be thinking about this instead?

When she'd begun to initiate more, I had almost lost myself completely. I knew that if that was what she wanted, really wanted, I would never leave the bed again. In the week since I'd imprinted, I had thought about it countless times – so many times, in fact, that I felt a little guilty about it. I hated violating Kim, even in my head, but it was impossible _not _to. I had almost burst into a fit of ironic laughter when she'd apologized to me. Apologizing for almost giving me what I wanted most in the world.

Of course, reasonably, I knew it wasn't _that _that I wanted more than anything. I wanted Kim to be happy, to be the happiest person in the world, and I'd do whatever I could to make it happen.

I glanced at her now, asleep in my bed, the most innocent thing I'd ever seen. She looked like a little girl with her hair splayed out on my pillow, and her fists clutching the sheets tightly. Every once in a while, she emitted the softest snore and fidgeted a little, making my heart inflate to the point of pain. I was thrilled to have her in my bed, not only out of my selfish desire for her, but because I knew I could protect her here.

I worried about her constantly now, a cruel twist of fate considering she had decided to cut me out of her life completely, a decision I couldn't fault her for. I had been the biggest asshole to her, of all people, the one girl who had deserved my attention most.

Sam had it so good – Emily checked in with him constantly, letting him know when she arrived somewhere so that he wouldn't go mad with concern. I didn't even have Kim's _phone number. _

Once, after a particularly long night patrolling, Paul had confronted me with a list of my craziness. He said I worried _too _much, which was true, but impossible to remedy. I worried about her well-being and her health, and I worried about her getting into a car accident, and I worried about every guy she graced with her presence.

I didn't even know if she'd ever been kissed before this. She didn't strike me as the type of girl who had a lot of experience, and I preferred it that way. I didn't want to think about another guy kissing Kim; I'd go insane if I did.

There were rumors, of course, about her relationship with Jeremy Pipkins so long ago, and I knew there was something behind it. But Jeremy lied about girls all the time – I didn't let myself dwell on it.

And surely, surely, _surely _she was a virgin. I ignored the nagging part of my brain that wondered what virgin would be so willing to have sex with a guy she didn't even like. She was just drunk. It would physically kill me to know that she'd been with someone like that, even if it had happened a long time ago. I wasn't really in a position to speak – I'd lost my virginity at thirteen to a camp counselor I never saw again – but the thought of it stabbed me in the gut. If only I'd noticed her sooner. We could have been friends, even in a relationship, and we could have easily transitioned into a comfortable imprint-imprintee relationship.

As I watched Kim from a chair near the bed, I caught wind of a new scent in the house. Unlike Sam and Paul, my sense of smell was more developed than my hearing (although my hearing was pretty kickass, too) and I could easily identify people based on their smell. This was clearly Paul.

He knocked on my door quietly, and I quietly told him to come in. He ducked his head in and took in the scene: Kim sleeping soundly and me watching her, a little creepily, and he smirked.

"So, you finally got her," he said.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I don't know if I'll ever know."

Our voices, though loud enough for us to hear, would probably not be loud enough for Kim to catch even if she was awake.

"I got her friend Ella home," Paul told me, and I nodded my head in thanks. "They were pretty wasted, man."

"I know."

"Underneath her quiet girl façade, Kim's kind of a free-spirit," he said wisely. "And I don't wanna get all mushy here, but I really think she needs you, even if she's not going to admit it. So…don't fuck this up."

Having been in Paul's thoughts, I knew that he felt an odd sense of responsibility for Kim. It bothered me; I didn't like him encroaching on my territory. But Paul had known Kim's mom – and had had a huge adolescent crush on Kim's mom, as a matter of fact – and had been there at the funeral of both of her parents. His memories of that day still haunted him, and now they haunted me.

"Her family really fucking sucks," Paul continued. "I talked to Ella in the car, and according to her, Kim's home life is miserable. Her brother is a douche, and her sister-in-law has a major stick up her ass. And they've got those two kids in the house. She's not…well, Ella thinks that she's never really had someone to care for her."

I looked at my hands, feeling like the biggest scum of the earth, not for the first time that week. I knew Paul was trying to help, trying to help me piece together the mystery that was Kim, but at the moment, it just made me feel like shit.

"So just, you know, take good care of her," Paul said awkwardly, beginning to get uncomfortable with this emotional talk. "You're a great guy, and she deserves someone like that in her life."

"Thanks, Paul," I said, meaning it. Paul's personality never failed to impress me – he could go from being the suave, devil-may-care ladies man to a sensitive listener and caring friend in under two seconds.

"And I can cover your shift tonight," he offered. "You probably want to enjoy this while it lasts."

I smiled halfheartedly and said thanks again as he left.

I spent the rest of the night anxiously awaited Kim's reaction when she woke up in the morning, and trying to think of ways to atone for seventeen years of being an asshole.

* * *

_A/N: So, it might just be because this chapter is longer, but it felt very ramble-y to me. But whatever! I hope you all enjoyed it! Reviews would make my day – and any suggestions will definitely be considered!_

_(Also, I'll probably reread this tomorrow and then go back and edit all the mistakes, because I am sure there are a lot.)_


	9. Chapter 9

"**Don't be so gloomy. After all, it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The Cuckoo Clock. So long, Holly."**

– _**The Third Man**_

The biggest regrets always surface in the early morning, when you can't quite remember the reasons behind your judgments. Suddenly you just can't remember why you had to eat that last piece of cake, or why you felt it was necessary to start a fight with a friend. Your head is too groggy and too full to recall why you did what you did, but you're left to face the consequences anyway.

Waking up in Jared Thail's bed was not something I'd ever anticipated doing – or, if I had, it had been buried away with all the other things I'd dreamed of doing with Jared.

I was awake before I opened my eyes, and as there was no noise in the room save for Jared's breathing, I assumed he was still asleep. Color heated up my cheeks slowly at first, but suddenly I was burning, and I couldn't think of anything but _getting away. _I couldn't face Jared, not after the kiss. Not so soon, anyway.

As I sat up in the bed, though, the effects of my slightly over-the-top alcohol binge caught up with me. I fell back into the pillows, clutching my forehead and silently screaming the way I had when I was younger and upset with my mother. Instead of throwing a tantrum, I'd gone into my room and screamed with all my might, not letting the sound leave my throat. But now the pressure only hurt my head more.

I'd thought I'd been hung over before, but nothing in my life compared to the unique pressure building behind my head, as if I'd spent the last week banging it continuously into a wall. It took me several minutes to collect myself enough to climb out of the bed, and even then, my legs were so weak that it was a challenge. I devised a plan quickly – I'd change in Jared's bathroom, run home and sneak into bed before Penny woke up, wash the clothes Jared had lent me and return them tonight. Hopefully I could be quiet enough to keep Jared from waking up, and then I could mentally prepare myself to see him for the rest of the day.

Just as I was making my silent break for it, though, I heard a groggy voice behind me, "Kim? Where are you going?"

I froze, my hand on the doorknob, and closed my eyes in horror. Deciding that making a run for it would only make an awkward situation more awkward, I turned around slowly and faked a smile that might have been more of a grimace.

"Isn't this how Walks of Shame are done?" I asked with a shaky laugh.

Jared looked good, even just waking up. His hair was short enough that it was barely tousled, and when he propped himself up on his elbow, smiling at my attempt at humor, he looked like he belonged in a Ralph Lauren Sleepwear catalogue.

"I'm not too familiar with the process," he admitted, standing up in one fluid motion. "But you hardly did anything that constitutes a Walk of Shame."

"Right," I laughed again. "Because getting piss drunk and making a fool of myself in front of a guy I hardly know isn't at all shameful."

"I've seen worse. I've _done _worse, actually," Jared assured me.

We smiled at each other for a long moment and then, as if on cue, both of the smiles faded off our faces simultaneously. We both started to speak at the same time and then snapped our mouths shut.

"Look, I – "

"Kim, I'm – "

I motioned for Jared to go first, and the words seemed to explode from his mouth. It seemed he'd rehearsed. "Kim, I'm really sorry about last night. That was really messed up of me. I took advantage of you, and I'm really sorry, and – "

I cut him off. "Jared, you didn't take advantage of me. Don't worry about it. We can both write it off as a one-time thing that will never, ever happen again. And I'm really sorry that you had to sleep on the floor," I tacked on as an afterthought.

He looked, quite honestly, devastated. I tried to think of what I'd said to make him look like that, and decided that maybe he just enjoyed playing the tortured hero. In my opinion, I was being very reasonable, very cool and detached from the situation. I was a Courtney Loquato, not a Tia Summers, who had gone into mourning after she and Jared had broken up. I would not allow myself to become vulnerable like that.

"I mean it's not like I blame you for something I took part in too, you know?" I rambled on, trying to explain myself further. "It was as much my fault as yours. And I won't tell anyone, in case you were worried about that. I know you're kind of with Courtney and I would never want to come between anything - "

"I'm not with Courtney," Jared said immediately. "I'm not with anybody. And…I really like you, Kim. I didn't kiss you just because you were here. I _wanted _to kiss you."

My entire body seemed to deflate as I let out a breath. "Really?"

"Yeah," he said, moving closer while he examined my face. He was suddenly right in front of me, towering over me without trying. I felt tiny and weak in comparison. "I wanted to kiss you so bad."

In terms of declaration of attraction, it was sub par. Jared wasn't reciting a poem he'd written in awe of my beauty or singing a song he'd composed to win my affections, but he was telling me how he felt, plain and simple. It was the only thing that could have made me feel weak at the knees, and sure enough, it did.

"I can't stop thinking about you," he continued. "You drive me crazy."

As someone who'd never driven anyone crazy before, I was skeptical. Jared Thail could have any girl he wanted on a silver platter – and, by all appearances, he had – and I was, if not completely ugly, at least not nearly as attractive as some of the women he'd been with. I couldn't help but mentally compare myself to them, and no matter what way I looked at it, I came up embarrassingly short.

"You don't really mean that," I accused softly, when what I really wanted to say was _why_. But it was hard to think straight when he stared at me with his silver-ringed brown eyes.

"Yes, I do. You're the most interesting girl I've ever met," he said, leaning in, so that he was inches away from my face.

I couldn't help it. I grabbed his face and pulled it down to mine, pushing my lips against his as hard as I could. He responded like I'd hoped, wrapping an arm around my waist, pulling me close. But I wasn't drunk anymore, and I had no excuse for getting caught up in the moment. With all the strength I had, I planted my hands on his shoulders and pushed him away. Though at first he gave no sign of noticing, after he became aware of my intentions, he pulled back.

"I can't do this," I choked out, trying in vain to untangle myself from him. He released my waist slowly. "I'm so sorry."

I hastily grabbed my things while looking anywhere but at Jared. He blocked the door unintentionally, and as I asked to get by I added, "I'll return the clothes later. I really have to go."

He didn't move at first, and I felt tears stinging my eyes. "Please, Jared. Please let me go."

Finally, he budged. I could tell that he wanted to follow me, but he didn't. I ran all the way down the stairs and out the door and into my house before I took a single breath, and then I leaned against the foyer wall, ready to collapse.

"Kim!" I heard from the living room. Penny walked out slowly, holding the baby in her arms, wearing a black sundress and pearls. Only Penny could look so put together before noon. It made me feel even more drab and disgusting than I was, which was really saying something.

Ready to scramble for my excuse, I opened my mouth, but before any sound left, Penny grabbed my wrist tightly and leaned in. "The elders are here," she whispered, her eyes troubled.

"Oh, shit," I muttered, forgetting that Penny had an issue with swearing in front of the baby. At the moment, though, she didn't even spare me a chiding glance.

"Chris is in there with them right now," she hurried to explain. "They said they finally came to an agreement on the wills."

Because La Push is a Native American reservation, the tribal council reserved several rights over the state and federal government. The council, referred to as "The Elders" by everyone on the rez (a testament to the backwards, old-fashioned customs we couldn't seem to shake), was a looming threat over the entire population. They handled most legal concerns, with the exception of actual crimes, which were handled by the state.

My parents had never gotten around to writing wills, so when they died, all of their possessions automatically went to the council, and they were left to decide what to do with them. I didn't particularly care; I'd never wanted anything of my parents'.

"Should I…go in?" I asked, though my heart thudded nervously at the idea. The elders were intimidating.

"Go change first," she said, practically shoving me into the garage.

I took my time, slowly pulling on a respectable outfit, brushing my hair until it fell into a soft sheath down my back. Although I'd showered at Jared's, I sprayed myself with too much perfume, still feeling dirty from last night.

When I went back downstairs, Penelope was pacing around the kitchen, unsure of what to do. I looked at her for guidance, and she all but shoved me into the living room, where the elders and Chris were congregated.

It took me a long moment to digest the scene, my stomach feeling queasy as I took it all in. Chris was seated on the chair farthest away from the door, leaning in as if he were listening intently. Old Quil Aterea, Billy Black, and Harry Clearwater sat together on the couch, wearing such casual clothes that if I hadn't known better, I would have thought they were over to watch a game. Across from the couch, Sam Uley occupied the smaller loveseat by the window. All four men stood up when I entered the room, and all the blood drained from my face, quickly replaced with a rush of heat.

"Kim," Old Quil said in his signature gravelly voice. Though I'd only met him a few times before, I was not surprised by the familiar way he greeted me. Old Quil was the oldest elder, and his whole life revolved around the reservation.

"Hello, Mr. Aterea," I said quietly.

He smiled indulgently; his eyes crinkled at the corners so much it seemed like his face was in danger of caving in. "Please," he said, "call me Old Quil. Everyone seems to."

I nodded with a timid smile. Sam scooted over on the loveseat, clearly making room for me in the only spot available. With my heart thundering in my ears, I sat down, crossing and uncrossing my legs, placing my hands in my lap and studying the carpet. Sam offered me a comforting smile that I couldn't manage to return.

I hadn't known Sam was part of the elders now. Over the past year, he had completely alienated himself from the teenagers on the Reservation, though he couldn't have been much older than twenty. While he'd once been a hero to them, now he had taken it upon himself to handle security on the Rez. His seemingly self-appointed position had landed more than a few guys in trouble with the elders, and it had parachuted him to glory in the eyes of all the adults on the rez.

"We've just been telling your brother about a few decisions we've made, regarding your parents belongings," Billy Black informed me.

"Oh," I said.

For what seemed like hours, they droned on about assets and trust funds and property insurance. The words were not foreign to me, but I had no idea what it all meant and how it affected me. I waited in vain for someone to translate this all, but it didn't seem they had any intention of slowing down. Finally, Sam seemed to catch on to the fact that I was paying more attention to a loose string on the sofa than Billy Black, and he cut in.

"Basically, Kim, what we've decided is to split the assets from your parents estate into four even parts. You, your brother, your little sister, and your aunt will all be receiving equal cuts of the money."

My eyes snapped over to Chris, who looked like he was ready to blow. Our Aunt Delia had not been close to our mother in years, after a blowout that neither one ever seemed willing to talk about. I suspected the elders had decided to give Delia the money less because she was related to my mother and more because she was a single mother to my cousin, Embry, and worked two jobs to make ends meet.

Frankly, I didn't care.

"Now, your parents were very smart with their investments," Billy Black added. "It may surprise you. The house alone, which sat on a very pricey piece of land, was worth nearly a half of a million dollars."

I hadn't known that. Our old house, which had been relatively small for a beachfront property, had been in my dad's side of the family for a long time. It was one of the only houses near First Beach, and it sat along the cliffs, blending into the environment almost perfectly. I doubted most people even knew it was there. The house itself was dilapidated, falling apart more and more with each passing year, which was why Chris and Penelope had opted to sell it rather than renovate it.

"Your parents also set up college funds for each of you. Combining those, the house, the car, and each of your parents respective savings account, you will all likely walk away with around two hundred thousand dollars."

My eyes widened. Two hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money for a high schooler, a lot of money for anybody. I tried to wrap my head around what that meant. I could go to a private college without having to take out student loans. I could buy my own apartment when I turned eighteen. I could support myself, not forever, but for a decent amount of time before I settled into a career.

"Wow."

"Now, there are two courses of action we can take for you and your sister," Billy Black said. "We can either set up a bank account and put the money in it to use at your will, or we can set up a trust fund to be used after you each turn eighteen."

A trust fund. While part of me bristled at the idea of not being able to touch my money for another two years, I realized I wanted that for Sophie. A trust fund, proof that our parent's hadn't left us completely behind. I wanted Sophie to live with that illusion, the illusion that our parents had loved us.

"I think the trust fund would be best," Chris said, effectively stealing my line. My eyes fell to my hands in my lap and I nodded, agreeing.

Several more details were discussed, but I hardly paid attention. My thoughts drifted back to Jared and the hurt expression on his face, and our kiss (or, rather, our _kisses_). It was uncomfortable sitting next to Sam, who was apparently Jared's friend now. I wondered if Jared had told him about our situation, or if he'd even mentioned me at all.

My question was answered when all four men stood up to leave, shaking hands with Chris and I. As Sam's hand engulfed mine – his skin was flaming hot, just like Jared's, I noted with curiosity – he smiled and said, "Jared really likes you, Kim. I hope to see you around."

With that, they left, leaving Chris and I alone in the room. Chris was watching me carefully, having heard Sam's words, and he continued to stare as Penelope burst into the room.

"_Well_?" Penelope burst out, looking like she was ready to explode of curiosity.

"What does he mean, 'Jared really likes you?'" Chris asked me, effectively ignoring his wife.

Penelope's face fell and then became alight; she turned to me quickly and exclaimed, "Jared _Thail_? From across the street? Have you two been spending time together?"

My instincts went into panic mode – fight or flight. But considering Penny was blocking the door and I didn't especially want to throw out punches so early in the day, I just stood there silently.

"Oh, that's so great, just so great, Kim!" Penny gushed. "I'm so happy that you're getting more social. And Jared is _so gorgeous_."

I thought it was more than a little awkward for Penelope, a twenty-three-year-old wife and mother, to call Jared _so gorgeous_, but instead of commenting I just blushed harder and tried to push my way out of the room. Chris placed a restraining arm on my shoulder.

"I don't think you should get involved with someone like Jared Thail, Kim," Chris told me. "He's…not…like you."

I would have been indignant if his words weren't so true. I respected that Chris was trying to protect me in the only way he knew how, even if it was a small hit to my self-esteem.

"Nothing is going on between Jared and I," I told them both firmly. Confident in my conviction, I stood up a little straighter and added, "And nothing ever will."

* * *

Later that night, I took Sophie out to get hot fudge sundaes at a small shop on First Beach. La Push was not a big tourist trap, but it did have a small pier that attracted people from Forks and other surrounding cities. The pier overlooked a rocky piece of beach, and to the left the cliffs shot up into the sky, while huge waves lapped loudly into the terrain.

Like most days, it was cloudy and chilly out, and so Sophie and I had bundled up in our warmest sweaters and boots. Chris had slipped me ten dollars before we left, knowing I was completely broke (the aforementioned $200,000 notwithstanding.)

"Kim, what did those men want today?" Sophie asked me as we walked hand in hand down the road.

I looked down at her. Her brown ringlets were sticking out of her hood, and her nose was red from the cold, and she still looked like the sweetest, most innocent kid in the world.

"They…uh…wanted to talk about some things about Mom and Dad," I said, trying to explain it as simply as I could. "Just…money they left to us. Money we'll get when we're older."

Sophie nodded, looking straight ahead. "I don't need money," she told me.

"One day you might," I reasoned. "Hot fudge sundaes don't grow on trees, you know."

She giggled and wrinkled her nose.

She talked for the rest of the way, about school and her friends and anything else she could think of, and it was a relief. Sophie was the perfect distracter from Jared. She was like a much-needed breath of fresh air, and I resolved that from now on, I would spend more time with her. She deserved a sister. She deserved _someone_.

The beach was crowded, which made sense considering it was a Saturday night. I gripped Sophie's hand tighter, and she did the same, and together we weaved through the small throngs of people. I remembered a time not too long ago when I would have been humiliated to be seen with my younger sister on a Saturday night, but now, I couldn't have cared less.

The ice cream shop was at the front of the pier. It was actually a diner, though I couldn't recall the last time I'd seen someone actually eating there. The place didn't technically even have a name – unless you counted the sign that hung outside the window saying "DINER" in handwritten script – so it was affectionately referred to as The Spot. I wasn't positive, but the nickname probably had something to do with it being the only spot to hang out at in all of La Push.

The Spot was all outdoors except for the kitchen, which had once been a public bathroom. Orders were taken at the bar, which was really just a long piece of wood with awning over it. Tonight was a slow night – ice cream was not in high demand in forty-degree weather.

"Hey, Kim," Tanner Otis said from behind the bar. I hadn't known he worked there, but apparently he did, because he was wearing an apron and wiping down the counter.

"Oh…hey, Tanner," I said with my most awkward smile. Tanner had made no secret of his small crush on me; several times he'd come close to asking me out, but I'd always narrowly dodged his advances.

"What can I get for you two?" he asked both me and Sophie.

I stood silently while Sophie ordered her hot fudge sundae, and when he looked at me I just shook my head silently, making a small, pathetic negative sound in my throat.

"Alright, well I'll be right out with that." Tanner smiled at Sophie before walking to the back, giving me a confused look on his way.

While we stood waiting, I bit my lip so hard I think I hit blood, and Sophie tugged on my jacket until I looked down at her.

"I think he likes you," she whispered to me, and I thanked the heavens that she'd grown out of that phase where she shouted everything she said.

"Oh, no, no, no," I said hurriedly. I sounded crazed.

"Yuh-huh, I think so," Sophie said, nodding confidently.

"I hate to break it to you, but you're off on this one, kiddo," I told her, tugging on a loose piece of her hair gently, making her giggle.

"I don't think you should go out with him anyway," she continued casually. "Because I've been thinking about it a lot, and I think you should go out with Jared, Kimmy."

**A/N: So I feel so-so about this chapter, but it's kind of important in the direction I'm taking this story. I hope you all enjoyed it, and thanks as always for being absolutely amazing! Reviews would be a tremendous help, and as always, suggestions are welcome! **


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